Digital Marketing in Small and Medium

Enterprises: Evidence from the

Industrial Supplies Sector in
Singapore

Kwee Yong, Chin

A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of Edinburgh Napier

University, for the award of Doctor of Business Administration

March 2023
Abstract

In this digital age, technology has affected many company businesses,

including small and medium enterprises (SMEs). From the perspective of
resource-based theory (RBT), SMEs inherently possess limited resources
reducing the companies’ competitiveness in the marketplace. In the Singapore
business environment, it becomes tough particularly for the industrial supplies
SMEs. These companies are heavily dependent on their relationship-based
networks (RBN) for surviving their businesses. Despite the Singapore
government’s initiatives to encourage the industrial supplies SMEs to digitalise
their marketing efforts, the response has been lukewarm which can be
detrimental to their business sustainability in a competitive market space.

This study burrows in-depth into understanding the role of digital marketing as
a strategic tool for industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore. This would allow
SME owners/managers to comprehend the role of digital marketing (DM) tools
in forging a sustainable competitive advantage for these companies. The data
for this study was collected by conducting 10 semi-structured interviews
through purposive sampling. Six owners/managers of the industrial supplies
SMEs in Singapore and four customers with digital marketing capabilities were
selected for the interviews. This dyadic approach was applied to improve the
validity of this study.

The study findings of this thesis would enrich the digital marketing literature. A
novel approach was posited by combining the RBT and RBN as the
underpinning theories to investigate the role of digital marketing in forging
competitive advantages for industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore. This thesis
recommends DM tools that are helpful to improve business performance
despite having limited company resources. An action framework that guides
SME owners/managers in adopting digital marketing innovation in their
businesses was postulated to enable these practitioners to build more RBNs
and increase customer retention.

i
Acknowledgement

I would like to thank all members of my DBA cohort, the programme leader, Dr
Gerri Matthews-Smith, and the Edinburgh Napier University DBA team who
have taught me in the DBAs modules for their patience in making sure all my
questions were answered. They have been a great source of guidance and
encouragement. Completion of this thesis would not have been possible
without the support of my Edinburgh Napier University’s supervisors Prof
Nazam Dzolkarnaini and Dr Marizah Minhat, and my local supervisor, Dr
Melissa Liow. Their patience and guidance have shaped me into a better
researcher today.

I would also like to thank the owners/managers and the customers involved in
the interviews for giving their valuable feedback and sharing their rich
experiences. This thesis would not have been possible without the
understanding and support given by Edinburgh Napier University’s DBA team,
my supervisors and the participants in the research.

Kwee Yong, Chin

ii
Table of Contents
Abstract ........................................................................................................... i
Acknowledgement...........................................................................................ii
Table of Contents........................................................................................... iii
List of Table .................................................................................................. vii
List of Figure ................................................................................................ viii
Declaration .....................................................................................................ix
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION................................................................ 1
1.1. Overview, background context & motivation ..................................... 1
1.2. Definitions ......................................................................................... 4
1.2.1. Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) ......................................... 5
1.2.2. Industrial supplies .......................................................................... 5
1.3. Research aim, objectives and approach ........................................... 6
1.4. Research significance and contribution ............................................ 8
1.5. Thesis organisation ........................................................................... 9
CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................... 11
2.1. Introduction ..................................................................................... 11
2.2. The Background of Singapore ........................................................ 11
2.3. Theoretical Framework ................................................................... 13
2.4. The resource-based theory ............................................................. 14
2.5. The theory of relationship-based network structure ........................ 17
2.6. The digital marketing....................................................................... 21
2.6.1. Website marketing tools .............................................................. 24
2.6.2. Search Engine Marketing (SEM) tools ......................................... 25
2.6.3. Website directory / social media tools ......................................... 27
2.6.4. Email marketing tools .................................................................. 28
2.6.5. Digital word-of-mouth / blog tools ................................................ 30
2.6.6. Digital marketing tools as an enabler for relationship-based
network structure ...................................................................................... 31
2.7. The competitive advantages ........................................................... 32
2.8. Digital marketing tool as an enabler to build competitive advantages
for SMEs ................................................................................................... 33
2.8.1. Customer acquisition ................................................................... 34
2.8.2. Brand visibility.............................................................................. 35
2.8.3. Going global ................................................................................ 36

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 2.8.4. Customer satisfaction .................................................................. 37
2.8.5. Sales revenue.............................................................................. 38
2.8.6. Product and services appeal ....................................................... 39
2.8.7. Brand credibility ........................................................................... 40
2.8.8. International appeal ..................................................................... 41
2.8.9. Customer loyalty / retention ......................................................... 42
2.8.10. Value for money ....................................................................... 44
2.9. Research gap ................................................................................. 45
2.10. Chapter summary ........................................................................ 46
CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY .................................... 47
3.1. Introduction ..................................................................................... 47
3.2. Research paradigm and design ...................................................... 47
3.2.1. Post-positivism paradigms. ............................................................. 48
3.2.2. Constructivism paradigms............................................................... 49
3.3. Qualitative research approach ........................................................ 50
3.4. Data collection & Sampling approach ............................................. 51
3.5. Discussion of research ethics ......................................................... 53
3.5.1. Potential ethical problems with interviews and ethical
considerations undertaken to support the participants ............................. 53
3.6. The Interviews ............................................................................. 54
3.6.1. Primary data: Semi-structured interviews .................................... 54
3.6.2. Pilot studies .............................................................................. 55
3.6.3. Data collection: the owners/managers perspectives ................ 56
3.6.4. Data collection: the customer perspectives .............................. 57
3.7. Interview design .............................................................................. 59
3.8. Data analysis .................................................................................. 62
3.8.1. Thematic analysis ........................................................................ 63
3.9. Validity of the research ................................................................... 67
3.10. Methodology Limitation ................................................................ 71
3.11. Chapter summary ........................................................................ 72
CHAPTER FOUR: ANALYSIS AND FINDING ............................................. 73
4.1. Introduction ..................................................................................... 73
4.2. Demographic overview ................................................................... 73
4.3. Owners/Managers perspectives ..................................................... 78
4.3.1. Prominent digital marketing tools used (RO1) ............................. 79

iv
 4.3.1.1. Digital marketing tools used for customer acquisition............... 79
4.3.1.2. Digital marketing tools used in customer retention ................... 81
4.3.1.3. Overview of prominent Digital marketing tools used (RO1) ...... 84
4.3.2. Digital Marketing Tools and Strategic Benefits (RO2) ................. 85
4.3.2.1. Digital marketing as enabler in competitive advantages........... 89
4.3.2.2. Overview of Digital marketing and strategic benefits (RO2) .... 92
4.3.3. Effectiveness of digital marketing tools (RO3) ............................. 94
4.3.3.1. Overview of effectiveness of digital marketing tools (RO3) ...... 98
4.4. Customer perspectives ................................................................... 99
4.4.1. Prominent digital marketing tools used (RO1) ............................. 99
4.4.1.1. Digital marketing tools used for new suppliers ......................... 99
4.4.1.2. Digital marketing tools used for existing suppliers .................. 101
4.4.2. Digital marketing tools as strategic benefits (RO2) .................... 103
4.4.2.1. Digital marketing as enabler in competitive advantages ......... 104
4.4.2.2. Overview of Digital marketing and strategic benefits (RO2) .. 107
4.4.3. Effectiveness of digital marketing tools (RO3) ........................... 109
4.5. Chapter summary ......................................................................... 112
CHAPTER FIVE: DISCUSSIONS .............................................................. 114
5.1. Introduction ................................................................................... 114
5.2. Prominent digital marketing tools (RO1) ....................................... 114
5.2.1. Prominent digital marketing tools for customer acquisition ........ 114
5.2.2. Prominent digital marketing tools for customer retention ........... 118
5.3. Digital marketing tools as the enabler for competitive advantage
(RO2) ..................................................................................................... 119
5.4. Effectiveness of digital marketing tools in customer acquisition and
retention (RO3) ....................................................................................... 128
5.5. Chapter summary ......................................................................... 133
CHAPTER SIX: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS................... 134
6. Introduction ...................................................................................... 134
6.1. Achievement of Research Aim ...................................................... 134
6.2. Contribution to Knowledge ............................................................ 137
6.3. Contribution to Practice................................................................. 139
6.4. Limitations of the Study................................................................. 143
6.5. Suggestions for future Research .................................................. 144
6.6. Final Thoughts .............................................................................. 145

v
REFERENCES .......................................................................................... 146
Appendix 1 – Literature Grit .................................................................... 164
Appendix 2 – Qualifying email for SMEs Owners/Managers .................. 165
Appendix 3 –Qualifying email for Customers buying from Singapore SMEs
............................................................................................................... 166
Appendix 4 – interview consent form ...................................................... 167
Appendix 5 – interview questionnaire ..................................................... 168
Appendix 6 – interviewee details ............................................................ 172
Appendix 7 – Thematic analysis process................................................ 174

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List of Tables

Table 1 SICC code for wholesale trading - industrial supplies in Singapore. . 6

Table 2 List of digital marketing tools used by companies in B2B nature. ... 23
Table 3 Question scheduled for interview of owners/managers of the
industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore. ........................................................ 59
Table 4 Important probes scheduled for interview of owners/managers of the
industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore. ........................................................ 60
Table 5 Question scheduled for interview of customer of the industrial
supplies SMEs in Singapore. ....................................................................... 61
Table 6 Important probes scheduled for interview of customer of the
industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore. ........................................................ 62
Table 7 Summary of themes and sub-category. .......................................... 67
Table 8 Demographic overview of the owners and managers of the SMEs
participants................................................................................................... 73
Table 9 Demographic overview of the customer participant that purchase
industrial supplies. ....................................................................................... 76
Table 10 Summary of the date and type of industry interview conducted. ... 71
Table 11 Summary of prominent digital marketing tool for customer
acquisition, used by the industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore. ................. 79
Table 12 Summary of prominent digital marketing tool for customer retention,
used by the industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore. .................................... 82
Table 13 Summary of prominent digital marketing tools used by the industrial
supplies SMEs in Singapore. ....................................................................... 84
Table 14 Summary of the finding for RO2: To investigate the extent of digital
marketing tools benefitted as a strategic tool for SMEs. .............................. 93
Table 15 Summary of RO3: The effectiveness of digital marketing tools in
customer acquisition and customer retention ............................................... 98
Table 16 Summary of prominent digital marketing tool used by the customer
buying industrial supplies from new supplier in Singapore. ........................ 100
Table 17 Summary of prominent digital marketing tool used by the customer
buying industrial supplies from existing supplier in Singapore. .................. 101
Table 18 Summary of the finding for RO2: To investigate the extent of digital
marketing tools benefitted as a strategic tool for SMEs in the customer
perspective................................................................................................. 108
Table 19 Summary of RO3: The effectiveness of digital marketing tools in
customer acquisition and customer retention from the customer perspective.
................................................................................................................... 111
Table 20 Combination of owners/managers perspective and customer
perspective with regards to prominent digital marketing tools used for
customer acquisition. ................................................................................. 115
Table 21 Combination of owners/managers perspective and customer
perspective with regards to prominent digital marketing tools used for
customer retention. .................................................................................... 118

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Table 22 Combined summary of the findings for RO2: To investigate the
extent that industrial supplies SMEs benefitted by using digital marketing
tools as a strategic tool. ............................................................................. 121
Table 23 Summary of RO3: The effectiveness of digital marketing tools in
customer acquisition and customer retention. ............................................ 128

List of Figures

Figure 1 Overview Scope. ............................................................................ 13

Figure 2 A Resource-Based Approach to Strategy Analysis: A Practical
Framework. .................................................................................................. 15
Figure 3 Thematic analysis process. ............................................................ 64
Figure 4 Thematic map. ............................................................................... 66
Figure 5 Triangulation of three perspectives. ............................................... 69
Figure 6 Digital marketing action framework. ............................................. 140

viii
Declaration

I declare that this Doctorate of Business Administration thesis is my own work

and that all critical and other sources (literary and electronic) have been
properly acknowledged, as and when they occur in the body of the text.

Signed:

Date: 25 March 2022

ix
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

1.1. Overview, background, context and motivation

Over the years, studies on relationship-based network (RBN) theory have

attracted many researchers’ attention (Bengtsson & Kock, 1999; Ehret, 2004;
Ford et al., 2002; Naudé et al., 2014; Wu & Chiu, 2016). It has been argued
that an RBN drives relationship marketing and uses relations to promote
selling (Arli et al., 2018). It also builds trust and customer loyalty (Casidya &
Nyadzayo, 2019) and expands companies’ networks to increase potential
customers (Kuo et al., 2020) and better retention of existing customers
(Casidya & Nyadzayo, 2019). However, digital transformation has greatly
changed the lifestyle of people both in the working environment and in their
personal lives (Ancillai et al., 2019).

According to Arli et al. (2018), digital platforms can help to reduce salesperson
involvement. However, B2B customers demand complex service and solution
offerings which requires salesperson involvement and RBN. Digital marketing
tools, such as websites, ranked as the second-most-trusted item in the mind-
set of consumers with RBNs as the most-trusted (The Nielsen Company,
2015).

In the customer acquisition-retention literature, studies that focus especially

on the use of technologies for acquiring new customers (Aini & Hapsari, 2019),
building relationships (Eid et al., 2020) and ensuring customer loyalty (Hassan
et al., 2019) have emerged in recent years. Many studies show that the use of
digital tools has helped SMEs in building internal and external resources from
the resource-based theory (RBT) perspective, which, in turn, helps improve
their business strategy and the building of competitive advantages (Chong et
al., 2018; Dumitriu et al., 2019).

Studies focusing on digital marketing tools reveal supporting evidence that

digital marketing tools help companies to open many opportunities for shaping

1
RBNs (Steinfield et al., 1995; Turunen, 2021; Veronica et al., 2018), although
this is not straightforward to understand.

The digital marketing tools in this thesis refer to the use of web-based media
in a B2B context (Bhayani & Vachhani, 2014; James, 2020) such as websites,
emails, search engines, customer relationship management systems and
social media platforms (Aini & Hapsari, 2019; Durmaz & Efendioglu, 2016).
Bhayani and Vachhani (2014) argued that digital marketing tools do not
change traditional ways of business that are reliant on RBN but also add value
to the relational selling approach enhancing relationships using digital
marketing tools such as helping to integrate customer relationship building (Arli
et al., 2018). James (2020) concluded that digital marketing tools have a
positive and significant impact on SMEs’ relationships and network building.

Several studies explore the association between digital marketing capability

and relationship-based networks (e.g., Cenamor, et al., 2019; Iankova et al.,
2019). Iankova et al. (2019) advocated the greater need to investigate digital
marketing and RBN building, as digital marketing will have different impacts in
different countries and in different economic and industrial sectors (Casidya &
Nyadzayo, 2019). Therefore, this thesis takes a specific focus on the industrial
supplies SMEs in Singapore to present some evidence from a very competitive
and unique RBN network environment. The business nature of the industrial
supplies SMEs in Singapore requires technical knowledge of manufacturing
because the industrial suppliers are mainly dealing with the manufacturing
factories in Singapore. In addition, those factories are facing huge pressures
on cost of operation (Bloom, 2014; Choo, 2021) and are looking for
opportunities to reduce their operating costs. This has resulted in an increased
number of business closures of industrial suppliers (Accounting and Corporate
Regulatory Authority, 2021), which is alarming, as the manufacturing sector
still accounts for a substantial proportion (one-fifth) of the GDP of Singapore
(Yong, 2021).

Presently, digitalisation has started the process of reforming companies and

this has seen significant changes in many companies in Singapore (Tan, 2020).
Since the launch of the national SMEs Go Digital programme by the

2
government, there are about 25% of SMEs took up the program to begin
digitalisation (Kenny, 2021b). SMEs in the manufacturing industries were
carefully targeted as part of the digitalisation initiatives (Kenny, 2021a) as
manufacturing companies are relocating out of Singapore due to high land
prices and labour costs (Bloom, 2014; Choo, 2021). To combat the challenges,
digitalisation is encouraged to help the manufacturing sector. The government
envisions the transformation of the sector to stay competitive (Ng, 2021).

Although many digitalisation initiatives were targeted at the manufacturing

sectors. There are no specific initiatives for the industrial supplies sectors, the
government has plans that targeted the wholesale trade industry as a whole
and they have introduced many government grants to help SMEs to go
digitalise and also grants that help SMEs in tapping digital technologies to
expand themselves both locally and globally. Although, there are SMEs that
have gone digitalised and adopted a hybrid strategy on both a relational
approach and a digital approach. However, there is a challenge in convincing
the older generation of business owners to go for digitalisation (Ng, 2018) as
most businesses are still heavily reliant on a personal relationship with face-
to-face interactions and are concerned about the cost of digitalisation (Hariz,
2020).

There has been an increase in the number of business closures among the
industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore (Accounting and Corporate Regulatory
Authority, 2021) due to the saturated and small market in Singapore. Although
many Singaporean businesses have dealings with neighbouring countries,
such as Malaysia (Tessa, 2021), the resources needed to capture market
share in those countries have been inadequate (Neoh, 2018). Iankova et al.
(2019) have suggested that an in-depth investigation of these topics is needed,
as currently, there is a lack of literature on B2B digital marketing despite
intensive digitalisation in Singapore. Furthermore, SMEs in general lack the
resources within their organisation to implement digital marketing. A resource-
based approach helps to identify opportunities for SMEs to improve their
capabilities and work with the limited resources they have available.

3
SMEs normally have limited resources compared with larger companies and
this is especially the case in the challenging economic environment of
Singapore. Companies with limited market share are facing stiff competition
locally. Digitalisation is encouraged to help the manufacturing sector. The
influence of Industry 4.0 envisions the transformation of the sector to stay
competitive (Ng, 2021). In recent years, with digitalisation, buyers could search
the Internet and find new sources and this has brought challenges to the
traditional sales activity that is heavily reliant on face-to-face interaction (Arli
et al., 2018). In addition, Forkman et al. (2022) also conclude that the
challenges that face-to-face meeting is resource consuming and could expose
risks to the overall sales performance. Therefore, it is important to explore how
digital marketing could help the industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore which
mainly focused on B2B relationships.

The purpose of this thesis is to fill the gap as there is limited digital marketing
literature in the context of the industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore to
promote digitalisation. It also seeks to provide an understanding of managerial
and customer perspectives on digital marketing tools and RBN theory, and
how both are affected. It also adds to the academic literature using RBT as an
underpinning theory and focusing on RBNs and digital marketing in the context
of Singapore.

This chapter emphasises the need to consider the adoption of digital marketing
tools amidst this evolving global digitalisation transformation. It is also
important to understand how RBNs have played a critical role in helping
industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore remain competitive until the present day,
while drawing upon the RBT.

1.2. Definitions

There are many similar terms used in different contexts in this field. For the
sake of clarity, the definitions of terms used throughout this thesis are
explained as follows:

4
1.2.1. Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs)

The definition of SMEs varies across countries. For example, the number of
employees in an SME differs (Kusi et al., 2015). In Singapore, the SkillsFuture
Singapore Agency (2020) defines a local SME as having at least 30% local
shareholding and a group annual sales turnover of not more than $100 million
or a group employment size of not more than 200 employees. Currently, SMEs
make up 99% of the total business entities in Singapore (Ministry of Trade and
Industry, 2020).

1.2.2. Industrial supplies

The definition of industrial supplies generally means items that customers in

the industrial sector such as manufacturing, maintenance, repair and overhaul,
would need to use in their operations, the manufacturing sectors, make up
about 20% of the GDP and 10% of employment in Singapore (Ministry of Trade
and Industry, 2020). The industrial supplies sector is important to the overall
industrial sectors supply chain, ensuring continuity of supply, quality and safety
of the industrial sectors. In recent years, the industrial supplies sector faces
tremendous pressures in retaining customers as the cost of the business in
Singapore is forecasted to increase gradually (Ministry of Trade and Industry,
2020), causing customers to shift their focus to streamlining their
manufacturing process and cost savings (IPI Singapore, 2020).

In this thesis, industrial supplies constitute companies from the following two
codes classified by the government, as shown in Table 1. This sector is
considered part of the wholesale trade, B2B category in Singapore (Singapore
Department of Statistics, 2019).

5
Table 1

SICC code for wholesale trading – industrial supplies in Singapore

SICC 46599 Other Machinery & Equipment Nec

SICC 46332 General Hardware

Note. Adapted from Singapore Department of Statistics, 2019

(https://www.tablebuilder.singstat.gov.sg/publicfacing/createDataTable.action?refId=12905)

The main focus is on the two business activities of industrial supplies, mainly
on ‘Other Machinery & Equipment Nec’ and ‘General Hardware’. The term
industrial supplier is used to represent the businesses that provide industrial
supplies. This research focuses only on highly technical industrial supplies
such as abrasives, an indirect material which is used for grinding and polishing
process in the manufacturing process (Alary, 2021), and cutting tool products,
an indirect material which is used for the manufacturing process such as
milling and turning (Schneider, 2009; Sandvik Coromant, 2018). As the
focused product range in this research is commonly classified under the
General Hardware and Other Machinery & Equipment Nec which covers the
highly technical industrial supplies as well as all other industrial supplies.

1.3. Research aim, objectives and approach

This research aims to explore the role of digital marketing as a strategic tool,
and the gap in RBN structure from the underpinning RBT for industrial supplies
SMEs in Singapore to gain sustainable competitive advantages.

The research objectives are:

 RO1: To investigate the extent of prominent digital marketing tools used by

industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore.

6
 RO2: To investigate the extent to which industrial supplies SMEs in
Singapore benefitted by using digital marketing tools strategically.

 RO3: To investigate the effectiveness of digital marketing tools in customer

acquisition and customer retention.

The fulfilment of these aims and objectives will make a valuable contribution
to the owners/managers in the business by offering an understanding of how
their adoption of digital marketing tools may assist them to expand, or at least
maintain, their digital marketing capabilities to achieve competitive advantages.

It also contributes to the customer acquisition-retention literature, as the

methodology and findings may have wider applications. This study aims to fill
a gap in the literature by exploring the uniqueness of Singapore in practising
digitalisation in recent years (Ng, 2021; Tan, 2020). This study presents some
evidence highlighting the impact of digitalisation on the traditional operating
method of companies in Singapore.

This study adopts a qualitative approach to produce practical

recommendations for industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore as well as
contributing to the digital marketing literature. The study will interpret the social
roles of the owners/managers and the customer of the industrial supplies in
Singapore by their own set of meanings. As the unique interview
predominately involves Singapore SMEs operating in Singapore where a
majority of the population are Chinese immigrants and are deeply influenced
by Chinese culture (Zhang & Hong, 2017) and heavily reliant on a relationship-
based network. In addition, the concept of free-market also has a deep root in
Singapore where people believed in working hard to gain higher rewards. As
these cultural factors were taken into consideration during the research, the
complexity of the cultures is being carefully considered during the interview.
The cultural aspect has already been embedded deep into the individual
values and is shown in the response collected from the individual responses.
Therefore, the potential impact that culture might have affected the outcome

7
of the research would be considered as a holistic approach toward how the
industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore would behave.

Semi-structured interviews are used as the primary research instrument to

engage with both the owner-managers and the customers dealing with
industrial supplies in Singapore, as well as to develop a deeper understanding
of the research topic as well as the national culture that might potentially affect
the research topic. The detailed research methodology is explained in Chapter
3.

1.4. Research significance and contribution

This research is important to various stakeholders: owners and managers of

industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore and the customers of the industrial
supplier, as this thesis, provides deeper insight and understanding of business
practices. It also makes three categories of recommendations to the
practitioners.

First, the research deals with the issue of prominent and most effective digital
marketing tools used at present. Owners/managers from the industrial
supplies SMEs in Singapore could adopt similar digital marketing tools to
improve their business. Second, the research explores and develops an
understanding of how digital marketing tools could create competitive
advantages for SMEs. Owners/managers could apply the recommendations
to their business strategy. Third, it also explores the effectiveness of digital
marketing as a tool to enhance the RBN with the ultimate goal of acquiring
more customers through the network and achieving better customer retention
using RBT as the underpinning theory. The owners/managers that have
resource limitations would be able to review the effectiveness of various digital
marketing tools before implementing the recommendations.

The thesis also expands the understanding of the use of digital marketing tools
and RBN theory from the underpinning RBT to fill a gap in the customer
acquisition-retention literature and the digital marketing literature. To improve
the robustness of the thesis, the data triangulation technique applied in this
study provides an additional showcase to the customer acquisition-retention
8
literature in increasing the validity of the results, as the research was
undertaken qualitatively. This research was focused on a specific area of study
which could limit the generalisation in the finding, as the targeted industry in
this study was focused on the environment of the industrial supplies in
Singapore where there is a unique relationship between the RBN, digital
marketing and technical challenges of the manufacturing industry. However,
the methodological process of using a dyadic approach could also contribute
to further research in showcasing both the owners/managers and the
customers’ perspectives, an in-depth discussion would be in Chapter 6.5.

1.5. Thesis organisation

This thesis comprises six chapters. Chapter 1 introduces the thesis and
provides an overview of the background context, aim and objectives. It
summarises the research approach and contributions of the thesis.

Chapter 2 outlines the current situation of digital marketing in the industrial

supplies SMEs in Singapore. It provides a review of the background literature
to understand the research topic, discussed theories and issues and identifies
the research gaps.

Chapter 3 presents the research paradigm, ontology, epistemology and

axiology and explains the choice of qualitative methods for this study. This
chapter also details the methodology, data gathering and how the analysis
was carried out. In particular, the data triangulation technique that is applied
in the data analysis is also explained. This chapter also presents in detail the
process of the pilot studies and the creation of the questionnaire for the semi-
structured interviews.

Chapter 4 presents the detailed analysis and findings from the semi-structured
interviews for two different groups of participants.

Chapter 5 discusses the research findings from the two different groups of
participants and uses the data triangulation technique to increase the
robustness of the discussion.

9
Chapter 6 summarises the achievement of the research aims, gives
recommendations, explores the limitations, suggests further research, and
concludes this thesis.

10
CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1. Introduction

This chapter serves as a foundation for the thesis through an extended review
of the literature, broken down into three parts, namely: (1) a review of relevant
underpinning theories related to resource-based, relationship-based networks,
digital marketing and competitive advantages, (2) a review of research
evidence and an assessment of the impact of the underpinning theories on
business practice, and (3) a chapter summary.

2.2. The Background of Singapore

Singapore became independent on 9 August 1965 after its separation from

Malaysia (Abisheganadan, 1965). During colonial times, there were active
trading activities, which helped turn Singapore into a trading port in the South
East Asian region (Turnbull, 2009). Singapore in the past was known for its
locational advantage as a world port. Merchants from all over the world, mainly
traders, were attracted to the small island for trade and enterprise (Miksic,
2013). This helped the country to grow and evolve into a high-income economy
with a gross national income of US$54,530 per capita in 2017. Its economy
experienced continued growth of 3.2% into 2018, particularly in value-added
manufacturing, and 6% each year in the services sector (The World Bank
Group, 2019). Singapore shifted from labour-intensive manufacturing to
research-based, capital-intensive, high-technology industries (National Library
Board, 2010), which helped it to remain one of the most advanced economies
globally. It enjoyed several advantages, such as a highly skilled and productive
workforce, a flexible labour market and a stable government with policies that
encouraged foreign investment (Chauvin & Chenavaz, 2017).

The increase in land prices and labour costs have resulted in many
manufacturing companies relocating their factories out of Singapore (Bloom,

11
2014; Choo, 2021; Reuters, 2012) to Malaysia (Lim & Danubrata, 2012; Tessa
2021). This has affected the industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore: as more
factories move out of Singapore, they typically look into buying their industrial
supplies from a local source to shorten their supply chain and increase the
efficiency of their business (Handfield, 2019). Despite the manufacturing
sector contributing 20% of Singapore’s GDP (Yong, 2021), there is an increase
in the number of businesses from the industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore
that are shutting down (Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority, 2021)
due to the saturated and small size market in Singapore. This has posed great
challenges to the industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore bearing in mind that
99% of the businesses in Singapore are SMEs (Singapore Department of
Statistics, 2021).

Singapore is a unique multi-cultural country, with a population that is mainly

ethnic Chinese (Statista Research Department, 2020) due to the migration of
Chinese in the early days (Chan & Chiang, 1994). Owners/managers in
Singapore are usually involved in everyday business activities, as SMEs are
small and lack resources. Singapore has a working language of English and a
national language of Malay (Sim, 2016), which makes it easy for Singaporeans
to communicate globally. This is especially true with Malaysia. Singapore has
particular advantages in doing business with Malaysia due to the close
proximity of the two countries and also because many businesses from the
Singapore manufacturing sector have relocated to the southern part of Johor
(Lim & Danubrata, 2012; Tessa 2021), just across the Johor Strait from
Singapore. This has resulted in many industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore
exploring and building businesses across borders. Similarly, industrial
supplies SMEs in Singapore have been able to capture market share in
Malaysia, despite the geographical difference and the differences in cost.

As the industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore faced huge market pressure, it

is surprising that so many of them could continue to sustain and grow their
businesses. In addition to building international business using traditional
marketing methods, SMEs in Singapore have also focused on transformative
technologies and digitalisation (Ernst & Young Solutions LLP, 2019).
Technology transformation has increased productivity, sustained growth and

12
created new business opportunities in the current tightened labour market and
challenging business environment (Elangovan, 2018). However, it is still the
case that a majority of SMEs have not adopted new technologies in their
businesses, citing a lack of resources and skills to implement them as their
main reason (Tay, 2019). Therefore, to understand the industrial supplies
SMEs in Singapore whose main customers are in Singapore and Malaysia,
there is a need to use RBT to review their internal resources.

2.3. Theoretical Framework

Conceptually, the following Figure 1 shows the overall scope of this thesis.
The resource-based theory (RBT) is used to explain differences in firm
performance using internal resources such as digital marketing tools, while the
relationship-based network theory explains the external forces that bind
various variables to achieve sustainable competitive advantage (Zaheer & Bell,
2005) for the owner-managers of the industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore.
Both resource-based and relationship-based network theories build the
foundation of this thesis while digital marketing tools and their performance
help create competitive advantages for the industrial supplies SMEs in
Singapore.

Figure 1

Overview Scope

Note. Overview framework of the thesis scope, by Author.

13
2.4. Resource-based theory

The Resource-based theory focuses on using a company’s internal

characteristics to develop sustained growth (Penrose, 1959). It was further
developed by Wernerfelt (1984), who proposed the concept of using
differentiated resources to build competitive advantages. RBT has become an
important consideration in developing strategies for companies (Barney, 1991;
Grant, 1991; Penrose, 1959).

RBT focuses on using a company’s resources that are considered a strength

(Porter, 1981) to develop value-creating strategies (Barney, 1991; Day, 2014;
Grant, 1991). Given that the resources and capabilities of a company normally
provide direction for it, companies can use this direction to generate an
effective strategy (Barney, 1991; Grant, 1991) and help optimise profits (Grant,
1991) through market share growth (Hooley et al., 2001; Tsao, 2013).

RBT has also been applied widely in recent years to marketing-related studies
and business development strategies (Kozlenkova et al., 2014; Porter, 1985),
by focusing on the limited resources that a company has for creating
competitive advantage (Barney, 1991; Grant, 1991; Wernerfelt, 1984).

14
Figure 2

A Resource-Based Approach to Strategy Analysis: A Practical Framework

Note. From The resource-based theory of competitive advantage: Implications for strategy formulation
(p.115) by Grant, 1991. California Management Review, 33(3), 114–135.

The strategy framework shown in Figure 2 is used as a formulation for

analysing a company’s resource-based approach, appraising its capabilities,
analysing the potential of the company’s resources and capabilities, selecting
a strategy, and extending and upgrading its resources and capabilities (Grant,
1991). The objective of the resource-based approach in business is to create
competitive advantages that could help the business to grow and stay
competitive (Barney, 1991; Barney & Clark, 2012; Grant, 1991; Penrose, 1959;
Porter, 1985; Wernerfelt, 1984). Studies show that international competition
(Agarwal & Wu, 2018; Jormanainen & Koveshnikov, 2012; Ruzzier et al., 2006)
and rapid technological change (Brady et al., 2008; Veronica et al., 2018; Yeh
et al., 2012) have required businesses to operate in intense competition.

15
Competitive advantage is the primary source of inter-company profit
differentials (Grant, 1991). Therefore, according to Wernerfelt (1995),
strategies that are not resource-based are unlikely to succeed in a highly
competitive market.

There are studies that have suggested that successful companies with good
financial performance, such as McDonalds and Southwest Airlines, have
focused on other capabilities (Collins & Porras, 1997). Barney and Clark (2012)
suggested that improving non-financial capabilities can lead to sustained
competitive advantage. Therefore, a company should not focus only on current
profitability but should also take their future position and the development of
competitive advantage/s as their goals to optimise long-term company
performance (Hart, 1995). Moreover, Day (1994) argued that internal
resources are not the only resources that a company can utilise: there may
also be external resources available that a company can exploit without having
to own them.

As there are limitations on resources in SMEs compared to bigger and more

established companies. SMEs do not have many internal resources, to begin
with and would find it hard to explore both internal and external factors
adequately. According to Day (1994) and Teece (2009), by focusing on its
internal resources, a company can further organise their resources to identify
external opportunities to execute. Lusch and Harvey (1994) suggested that
external opportunities, such as customer relationships and brand equity, could
become increasingly important in creating competitive advantages for SMEs.
This is extremely important to the industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore as
they lack resources and constantly hope to improve their market share.

This study aims to explore the role of digital marketing that could become a
strategic tool of the industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore, the discussion
focuses on RBT and how the digital marketing capabilities of industrial
supplies SMEs in Singapore would enable resources, including RBNs, to
improve their strategy and create competitive advantages. Although, there are
there theories such as marketing theory and strategic theory. The RBT would
provide a better underlying framework to look into the industrial supplies SMEs

16
in Singapore as highlighted Teece (2009), Kozlenkova et al. (2014) and Burt
and Soda (2021) and suggesting that RBT would be more appropriate,
especially in the environment which involves resource scarce SMEs. The other
theories could be more effective when the industrial supplies SMEs in
Singapore have resolved the scarcity issue.

In summary, RBT provides an underlying framework for an analysis of how

SMEs could benefit from using their RBNs as an external resource to build
their capabilities. There is also the possibility of using existing internal
resources to build company capabilities to create competitive advantages in
the current competitive environment, characterised by increasing international
competition and rapid technological change.

2.5. The theory of relationship-based network structure

There are studies that argued that since technological advancement which
made information easily available, the market is moving towards transactional
selling (Ahearne, 2022). However, Geiger and Finch (2011) emphasise the
need to balance relational and transactional selling strategies. Whereas, Arli
et. al. (2018) argued that technological advancement could help enhance
relationship selling, and companies could leverage technology to enhance
relationship-based network to build successful business network relationships.
In addition, due to the unique Singapore context where relationship-based
networks are greatly valued. It is important to understand how the relationship-
based network is applicable to this study.

Relationship-based networks are commonly explained with the help of network

theories (Akhtar et al., 2018; Schoenherr et al., 2015). In Asian societies, the
words “guanxi” and “yongo” are indicative of the influence of Confucianism,
which focuses on collectivism over individualism (Yao, 2000; Zhang & Hong,
2017). The words can also be defined as the relationship between people,
forces, and objectives (Du et al., 2019). In some spheres, they are also
considered as an informal social network. “Guanxi” would normally have

17
characteristics such as commitment, reciprocity, loyalty, and commitment to
maintaining the relationship for the long term (Chen & Chen, 2004). Although
in “yongo”, one is unable to develop a relationship without a proper connection,
“guanxi” and other RBNs typically keep their network closed and not
accessible to outsiders, although it is possible to be developed between
strangers depending on the changing needs and the situation between the
parties (Barbalet, 2021).

In RBN structures, the network is typically kept closed and most businesses
would normally focus on their network. In addition to the closed network of a
business, individual networks would often be brought into a business for official
dealings, translating into an organisational relationship between two
companies instead of a personal relationship (Kuo et al., 2020). A network
could be set up through a mediator’s guidance. Individual social activities, such
as going out for drinks or having meals, could help to build the relationship
(Zhang et al., 2019), which could be expanded through those social activities
and brought back to the business (Kuo et al., 2020).

Therefore, in RBN structures, networks can be built from individual activity or

through business dealings. The latter can take place during a casual dinner
through a friend’s introduction to another circle of friends or via business
networking events as well. Individual events can also assist to build RBNs that
could be useful to the business (Yata & Hurd, 2021).

The primary aim of the RBN structure in all businesses is to acquire and
maintain customers who are profitable for the business since good and stable
relationships with customers will provide a sense of trust, which in turn,
promotes long-term benefits to both parties (Yang et al., 2008; Zhang et al.,
2019). Relationships in companies occur with every individual. They make an
important contribution at the company level (Akhtar et al., 2018; Rocca, 2020)
and could ultimately improve performance by generating competitive
advantages (Cenamor et al., 2019). RBNs can help companies by promoting
long-term cooperation, as both parties understand each other well
(Varadarajan, 2020), trust each other (Zhang et al., 2021), and are better able

18
to solve any potential conflict or address any miscommunication (Casidya &
Nyadzayo, 2019; Yeh et al., 2020).

This helps companies know their customers’ goals and objectives, thereby
enabling them to better serve their customers. This, in turn, builds customer
loyalty (Suherna, 2021) and competitive advantages for the company
(Ledikwe et al., 2019). Using the competitive advantages that are generated
by relationship-based networks allows companies to increase their market
share (Agostini et al., 2019) as well as retain existing customers, which, in the
long run, benefits companies significantly.

In an RBN where companies tap into the potential benefits from the network,
the relationships can be used to create benefits and competitive advantages.
This helps companies compete in the global market (Liu & Yang, 2020) and
achieve their goals. Relationships are not built overnight: they require time and
opportunity for individual social activities to occur (Forkmann et al., 2022).
Furthermore, an RBN is heavily reliant on links with a person who has a
network to both parties to expand and build a new network (Guan, 2011; Kuo
et al., 2020; Zhang et al., 2019).

There are limitations on building relationships, in particular for the SMEs in

Singapore. Problems can arise from the saturated market in which many
companies compete for the same customers. The size of the SMEs (Yata &
Hurd, 2021) puts them at a clear disadvantage in the number of relationships
they can form with customers. Because SMEs have a size limitation, their
networks are limited and most networks are typically built by the owners and
the managers of the company, both informally and formally (Agostini et al.,
2019).

The size of the SMEs means that there are a limited number of networks that
they can generate (Agostini & Nosella, 2019; Lu & Beamish, 2001). In addition
to maintaining existing networks, these SMEs also need to develop new
networks if the company is to grow further. That means that the traditional
method of building a network physically by owners and managers is no longer
sustainable: they cannot both retain current networks and build new ones at

19
the same time (Setkute & Dibb, 2022). They have reached the maximum
number of networks they can maintain.

Due to the rapid adoption of technology in everyday life, studies that focus
especially on the use of technologies for gaining new customers, building
relationships and ensuring customer loyalty (Hassan et al., 2019; Orenga-
Roglá & Chalmeta, 2016) have emerged in recent years. This has changed
the way SMEs can potentially run their businesses and maintain their
traditional methods of dealing with customers. Many studies show that the use
of digital tools has helped SMEs with their business strategy (Li et al., 2016)
and in building competitive advantages (Parker et al., 2016).

It is therefore important that the industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore have a

good relationship-based network to create a competitive advantage. However,
having limited resources to build networks is a problem for them. Digital
marketing tools have the potential to help them acquire and build relationships
and ensure customer loyalty, thus creating competitive advantages over their
competitors in the market.

In this study, it can be seen that although industrial supplies SMEs in

Singapore use relationship-based networking to foster relationships and
enhance sales, there are resource challenges. The addition of rapid adoption
of digital marketing tools might help businesses use relationship-based
networks to build and sustain their businesses.

In summary, RBNs have long been in existence and are making a huge impact
on companies around the world. However, existing relationships take time and
effort to maintain. A new relationship would be most effective when there is a
bridge that links to it. In today’s digitalised age, digital marketing tools could
potentially take over some of the time and effort required to maintain existing
relationships and also act as a bridge to form new RBNs. Relationship-based
networks and digital marketing tools can both be used by industrial supplies
SMEs in Singapore to assist them in working towards building competitive
advantages and helping them have a better standing in the current competitive
market.

20
2.6. Digital marketing

Digital marketing has been rapidly adopted by companies. It has changed how
people interact with one another (Adhiarso et al., 2018). However, there are
many conflicting views about whether digital marketing plays a part in
enhancing RBNs, suggesting that the issue is not as straightforward as some
belief (Ancillai et al., 2019).

In the current digital age, digital technology is used extensively in our daily
activities. More than one-third of the current population uses digital technology
(Zahoor & Qureshi, 2017) and this affects human behaviour as well. Digital
technology changes the traditional ways that companies interact and
communicate with each other and maintain (Reimann et al., 2021) or
establishes new relationships between individuals and businesses
(Fraccastoro et al., 2021). In the case of companies with business operations
using digital marketing, business performance can be realized optimally if all
work activities run effectively and efficiently so that they generate a competitive
advantage over their competitors.

Of course, improving business performance and achieving predetermined

targets are the aims of all companies. Technological capabilities play a role in
increasing competitiveness and improving business performance (Agostini et
al., 2019; Hassan et al., 2019). Meeting customers’ expectations in perception
and behaviour are also elements of building successful competitive
advantages (Distanont & Khongmalai, 2018; Dumitriu et al., 2019).

Digital marketing has become important in the B2B context for companies as
it brings many benefits (Scheers, 2018). However, different digital marketing
tools are suitable for achieving different benefits. Using Search Engine
Marketing (SEM), for example, means that business advertisements are
available throughout the year and are accessible to a large segment of the
market. This makes them an opportunity to create a direct marketing
relationship with potential customers (Scheers, 2018; Todor, 2016).

In addition, digital marketing tools allow businesses to find and engage

customers at a lower cost and with a faster rate of engagement compared to

21
traditional marketing (Narsavidze, 2014). According to the Nielsen Company
(2015), people in the Asia Pacific region still prefer recommendations from
people they know when looking for products they need. This is the preferred
way of finding new suppliers for products they need. Looking at websites is
only their second preference. This shows that there are limitations on the role
that digital marketing plays in assisting a supplier company.

Companies dealing B2B will have different marketing tools and strategies from
those engaged in B2C (Iankova et al., 2019). Given that the industrial supplies
sector sells consumable products, customers typically make repeat purchases
over a prolonged period unless there are factors that cause them to switch
suppliers. To keep these customers, companies strive to build relationships
with them so that they can resolve any problems that may arise effectively.
Companies can tap into digital marketing tools to help build new networks.

22
Table 2

List of digital marketing tools used by companies engaged in B2B

Digital Marketing tools

Digital
Search
Website Word-
Year Author Title Website Engine Email
Directory of-
marketing Marketing marketing
/ Social Mouth /
tools (SEM) tools
Media Blog
tools
Tools
Digital Display - Many agents
are adding digital tools to their
2011 Chordas marketing mix to boost leads X X X
and create greater brand
awareness.
The Importance of Digital
Marketing. An exploratory
Khan & study of the perceptions and
2013 X X X X
Siddiqui effectiveness of digital
marketing amongst marketing
professionals in Pakistan
The Effect of Digital Marketing
Cizmeci & Communication Tools in the
2015 X X
Ercan Creation of Brand Awareness
by Housing Companies
Micro-Enterprises’ Digital
N kunen
2017 Marketing Tools for Building X X X X X
et al.
Customer Relationships

Negoit Digital Marketing Tools Used

2018 X X X X
et al. by Companies

Traditional versus Online

Marketing for B2B
2018 Veronica et al. X X X X X
Organizations: Where the Line
Blurs

Internet Web Marketing

2018 Scheers Challenges of South African X X X X X
SMEs

Interests Influence of Digital

2019 Aini et al. Marketing Product Sales in X X X X X
Exports by SMEs in Bandung

Digital Marketing: Its Impact on

2020 Kumar X X X X X
B2B in India – A Study

Industrial Marketing
2021 Krings et al. Management: Digital Media X X X
Optimization for B2B Marketing

Note. Compiled by author from searching for digital marketing tools used for the past 10 years. Refer
to Appendix 1 for more details.

Table 2 shows the digital marketing tools most commonly used by B2B
companies. They are websites, Search Engine Marketing (SEM), email,
participating in online directories or social media and using a blog as a means

23
of creating word of mouth referrals from existing customers through a feedback
comment section. Although those are the commonly used tool that is used by
the B2B companies, the digital marketing tools and how they are being used
might differ in Singapore. A more in-depth analysis will be done in the following
section to understand how the tools are used and how they contribute to
companies.

2.6.1. Website marketing tools

Website marketing sounds simple and straightforward. As the name suggests,

website marketing first involves creating a website to showcase the product
and services of the company. Websites are the most basic requirement of the
entire suite of digital marketing tools (Bhayani & Vachhani, 2014) and the most
basic step in creating a company’s online presence (Sharma et al., 2020).
However, creating a website requires many sophisticated steps,
considerations and methods, and is the most important part of an overall digital
marketing strategy (Aini & Hapsari, 2019; Nikunen et al., 2017).

According to Nikunen, et al. (2017), a website can assist in building customer

relationships by engaging a customer’s interest and participation to enhance
retention. Similarly, Veronica et al. (2018) stated that a website should be the
first go-to resource as customers want to access information that may offer
solutions in the shortest possible time. Furthermore, websites are always
available at any time and to customers in any location (Scheers, 2018). A
website is the most preferred digital marketing tool used to create competitive
advantages for SMEs (Negoit et al., 2018). However, Rowley (2008) noted
that website content is a very important aspect of the website marketing tool:
a website that does not have value creation for the customers may have a
negative impact on the company instead of creating any competitive
advantages (Capece & Pillo, 2021).

There are many ways in which a website could help a company build
competitive advantages, such as enhancing the brand, increasing brand
equity (Dumitriu et al., 2019) and leveraging on a global image (Makrides et

24
al., 2020). In the industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore, there are fair number
of companies which have a website presence. However, it is not sufficient
merely to have a website as the main digital marketing tool. B2B sales cycles
are complex and more needs to be done to effectively create competitive
advantages using digital marketing (Veronica et al., 2018). One other method
is using Search Engine Marketing (SEM) to help attract potential customers to
the website.

In summary, website marketing tools can assist companies in building their

customer base. The perception of owner-managers is that having an online
presence helps to build customer relationships. Customers agree that a
website marketing tool is effective, as a website is always available to them.
However, creating a website marketing tool is not an easy task: managers
have to focus on creating value for the customers if a website is to have a
positive impact on building their company’s competitive advantages. SEM can
be used to enhance the website marketing effort to reach more potential
customers. In the next segment of this chapter, SEM will be explored in greater
depth to better understand how it connects to website marketing.

2.6.2. Search Engine Marketing (SEM) tools

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is a very broad topic on its own but the
minimum requirement for SEM work is to have a basic website and a website
marketing strategy. The fundamental goal of SEM is to enhance the visibility
of a website presence, which could be classified into three main sub-
categories, Pay-per-Click (PPC), Content marketing, and search engine
optimisation (SEO).

SEM, according to Leung and Mo (2019), is defined as tactics and skills that
are used for directing internet users from search engines to marketing
websites. Such techniques usually include PPC, which is paying a search
engine to put a website at the top of a list of results when selected keywords
that the company has chosen are searched for. The company pays the search

25
engine every time a potential customer clicks on their link (Aini & Hapsari,
2019).

Content marketing consists of creating relevant content that customers need.

The content should be short, simple and to the point on the website as this will
make the content stand out in an internet search engine (Bhayani & Vachhani,
2014). This, in turn, allows potential customers to get the relevant information
in the shortest time, thus creating value for the customers (Rowley, 2008).
While generating content for marketing, SEO techniques are a consideration.

SEO is a technique that helps the website to be found easily by potential

customers: website content is optimised according to the keywords that
potential customers are likely to use for their search and this would normally
help the website to be at the top of the search results (Bhayani & Vachhani,
2014).

In addition, SEM could assist in helping the company build brand visibility, as
SEM helps websites to be listed at the top of search results. It assists increase
brand visibility when potential customers search for related items (Makrides et
al., 2020; Nikunen et al., 2017).

According to Durmaz and Efendioglu (2016), SEM is considered the most

important aspect of digital marketing tools. However, some managers are not
convinced that SEM would help them in their business due to its cost (Ainin et
al., 2015; Scheers, 2018) and the belief that the lack of personal touch involved
means that it doesn’t build long-term relationships with customers (Sharma et
al., 2020). This is especially prominent in the Singapore context where it is
heavily reliant on using RBN to build a long-term relationships with the help of
the personal touch involved.

In summary, SEM tools could help companies by increasing awareness of their

products and services among potential customers. However, SEM is not a total
solution for acquiring new customers and retaining existing customers. There
are other digital marketing tools that can be used, and they are reviewed next.

26
2.6.3. Website directory / social media tools

Currently, social media are playing a very active role as a digital marketing
tool. In social media, advertisements can be shown only to a certain
demographic, meaning advertising can be targeted to those who are likely to
be interested (Makrides et al., 2020). This is highly effective as it reduces
wastage of time and effort: the company is not paying for poor quality leads,
so it is especially good value for money from the company’s perspective (Ainin
et al., 2015). Social media can also be used to direct customers to the
company website for more information, enhancing the sales conversion
process. It is also feasible for SMEs to build relationships and networks using
social media.

That said, social media can only be used as a bridge to build informal networks
(Ainin et al., 2015). In terms of bridges used for more formal networks, some
SMEs list themselves on website directories such as Greenbook, Yellowpages,
Alibaba and many others. These website directories can help SMEs showcase
their presence online and direct potential customers to the company website
to find out more about their products and services.

Social media and website directories can also help companies build more
RBNs. This follows because using social media for paid advertisements allows
targeted individuals to find out about and connect to the companies when they
have certain enquiries. Social media can also assist as a bridge for the
individual to build informal networks to enhance their relationship-based
networks (Ainin et al., 2015; Kumar et al., 2021). Website directories are used
for more formal network building. Potential customers can find a company in
the website directory and make contact with them concerning their enquiry.
Companies can use their response to the enquiry to build a relationship with
the customer, thus enlarging their relationship-based network.

However, website directories are not standalone digital marketing tools. They
rely on websites and can only act as a bridge to direct potential customers to
the company website. However, from a manager’s perspective, the cost and
maintenance of the website directory might be a challenge as the amount of

27
traffic driven to the company website may not be high enough to warrant the
cost. As for using social media tools, according to Ainin et al. (2015) using
social media tools helps in improving RBNs because the company has more
direct contact with the customers, giving it the capacity to better understand
customers. The challenge of using both website directory and social media are
that these digital marketing tools consume company resources. The company
needs to consider how to most effectively use those tools (Veronica et al.,
2018).

In summary, website directories and social media tools can help companies
by directing potential customers to their websites from these tools. Both
website directory and social media tools can also assist by directing potential
customers to the company’s website, enabling the company to make direct
contact with customers, understand customers better and build an RBN. The
only disadvantages of using those tools are the resources required, including
the know-how to find the most effective channel for the company to use digital
marketing tools. Email marketing tools as an alternative that can reach more
customers while potentially using fewer resources will be reviewed next.

2.6.4. Email marketing tools

The other popular digital marketing tool is email marketing, according to

Nikunen et al. (2017). Email marketing can help companies introduce new
products and services, increase communication, and, therefore, build a deeper
relationship with customers and increase customer loyalty. Similarly, studies
show that specifically targeted emails can help increase company revenue if
the correct email marketing strategy is applied (Makrides et al., 2020). There
is a significant body of literature that states that email marketing is the most
useful of the digital marketing tools (Charlesworth, 2018) for capturing
potential customers and retaining existing customers (Leung & Mo, 2019;
Makrides et al., 2020).

Email marketing can also be used to help direct customers to the company
website (Turunen, 2021), which can then show customers more about the

28
company, build brand credibility and assist with the sales conversion process.
Leung & Mo (2019) also define email marketing as the most successful
channel for delivering highly relevant marketing communications to target
customers. Moreover, it can also play a much larger role in terms of building
RBNs with the customers as it acts as a communication method with the
customers. Frequent communication with existing customers can help to build
relationships, understand them better, as well as potentially increase sales to
them. Targeted marketing email communications can also help a company
acquire new customers and to act as a mediator in building RBNs.

Most companies would be familiar with using email and, as most companies
would check their email almost daily, the cost of sending email is virtually free
(Neill & Richard, 2012; Rosokhata et al., 2020). This helps by outreaching to
customers effectively with the added benefit of being able to engage the
customers (Turunen, 2021).

However, constantly sending emails might not be a very good strategy.

Customers may be unhappy about email marketing communications they
receive if they perceive that such emails do not add value to them (Turunen,
2021). They could, therefore, have a negative impact instead of assisting the
company. In addition, managers also need to ensure that email contact with
the customer always adds value to the customers (Chaffey & Smith, 2017) to
avoid the scenario of customers unsubscribing or moving the emails into the
spam email folder (Turunen, 2021).

In summary, email marketing tools could help the company to introduce new
products and services to existing customers. As email is one of the oldest
digital marketing tools used by companies all across the world, the outreach
to existing customers would be huge. However, for email content to be relevant
and valuable to the customer, the customer should always be the focus of
email marketing. Any mistake in using email marketing tools could end up
disadvantaging the company (Merisavo & Raulas, 2004).

The final digital marketing tools that could potentially expand the relationship-
based networks of the company, build branding as well as help retain
customers that will be examined here are digital word-of-mouth and blogs. In

29
the next segment, the advantages and disadvantages of these digital
marketing tools are explored.

2.6.5. Digital word-of-mouth / blog tools

The term ‘digital word-of-mouth’ refers to feedback and recommendations

about certain products and services made on the internet rather than by actual
word-of-mouth (Whitler, 2014). Sharma et al. (2020) suggested that word-of-
mouth by customers who left feedback and reviews on a digital platform could
improve brand visibility. Positive reviews can even increase brand credibility:
they are much more effective than a salesperson trying to ‘hard sell’ a product
or service (Leung & Mo, 2019).

Often, digital word-of-mouth marketing comes from the sharing of digital

content, such as content that has been posted on the company’s blog for
marketing purposes. Nikunen et al. (2017) suggested that content that was
posted on a blog could engage customers’ interest and participation, as
blogging is a very popular activity (Ashwini & Varma, 2020). This would
increase interaction with customers and enhance customer relationships.
Such content could also be shared by customers with other potential
customers, further increasing brand visibility and credibility.

This digital marketing tool can serve as a bridge, helping to enhance the speed
and frequency with which the company establishes RBNs. This arises from the
fact that the digital word-of-mouth recommendation might come from someone
with whom the potential customers are familiar. Thus, they automatically
become a bridge despite not setting up a physical/face-to-face meeting or an
event, which have been the traditional means of building new RBNs in the past.

Blogging creates useful information and has the potential to improve the
ranking of the company website in internet searches (Thomas, 2016).
Constant blogging could create additional activity, as customers could leave
their feedback in the blog comment section. Interactive blog content could also
help to attract the attention of customers, thus improving customer interaction

30
and customer loyalty at a minimum cost to the company (Ashwini & Varma,
2020).

The only challenge facing digital word-of-mouth is the need to create blog
content that appeals to potential customers so that they would be sufficiently
interested to read and comment on it (Dean, 2016). From the managerial
perspective, it is not always easy to find someone who can generate
interesting content, especially in smaller companies.

In summary, digital word-of-mouth could assist the company in building

awareness and brand credibility and also act as a bridge to introduce more
potential customers to link up with the company through their comments and
reviews. Blogging also helps in generating relevant content that would attract
potential customers to the blog to understand more, thereby building the
customer acquisition capabilities of the company. However, it is not easy for a
company to develop interesting content to attract customers and facilitate
comments and reviews.

There are various methods for using digital marketing to build competitive
advantages for companies, giving the Singapore business environment that is
heavily reliant on RBN, the focus of this thesis is using digital marketing tools
to build RBN structures to create competitive advantages for SMEs.

2.6.6. Digital marketing tools as an enabler for relationship-based

network structures

There is a lot of literature on the topics of digital marketing tools and

relationship-building for companies across the world (Casidya & Nyadzayo,
2019; Hlefana et al., 2020; Krings et al., 2021). Although many companies
have adopted digital marketing, some have not been convinced of the benefits
of digital marketing in relationship building (Khan & Siddiqui, 2013; Nikunen et
al., 2017). In most research, successful digital marketing involves planning
(Negoit et al., 2018) and concentrating on the efficiency of the tools to achieve
their intended result (Nikunen et al., 2017).

31
Most research shows that digital marketing tools affect customer relationships
(Ancillai et al., 2019; Hassan et al., 2019; Nikunen et al., 2017; Orenga-Roglá
& Chalmeta, 2016; Reimann et al., 2021), ranging from assisting in building
RBNs to helping companies retain their customers and attracting potential new
customers. Different digital marketing tools can be used for building RBNs. In
the following section, RBNs and how digital marketing tools can potentially
lead to forging competitive advantages for companies will be discussed.

2.7. The competitive advantages

The theory of competitive advantage has been heavily researched over time.
There are many definitions of competitive advantage, ranging from providing
a differential strategy (Porter, 1985; Wernerfelt, 1984), creating a value
creation strategy (Barney, 1991; Day, 2014; Grant, 1991) and being
responsible to customers (Lestari et al., 2020). According to Porter (1985),
there are two ways that a company can build a competitive advantage: cost
advantage, offering the same products and services at a lower cost than
competitors; and differentiation advantage, providing better products and
services than competitors. This was further reinforced by Barney’s (1991)
Valuable, Rare, Inimitable and Non-Substitutable framework for generating
competitive advantage.

Competitive advantage is the primary source of inter-company profit

differentials (Grant, 1991) and there is a common understanding that most
successful companies have a competitive advantage (Batog et al., 2015;
Distanont & Khongmalai, 2018) that enables them to outperform their
competitors, and thus become more successful.

Competitive advantages are especially important for SMEs. They depend

highly on their competitive advantage against larger competitors as they are
not able to deliver other customer benefits such as lower pricing or wider
product ranges (Harrigan, et al., 2010). Among the intangible firm resources
that can be turned into competitive advantages (Barney, 1991) are efficiency
and being able to sustain competitiveness in the market (Batog et al., 2015).

32
Moreover, in the current market, the industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore
face challenges from global market competitiveness. They are likely to be
pushed out of the value chain if they do not have any competitive advantages
to offer their customers, given that their customers are also looking to increase
their competitiveness in their businesses by optimising suppliers.

In Asia, many successful SMEs achieved success through the RBNs of the
owners or managers. Such networks are named differently across Asia,
although the concepts are very similar. In Chinese-dominated societies, such
as China, Taiwan, Hong Kong (Bian, 2019; Burt et al., 2018), the term
commonly used is “guanxi”. “Yongo” is used in Korean society (Horak & Klein,
2016; Zhang et al., 2021) and these studies contribute to the RBN literature,
particularly in Asia, in which Singapore is located. Moreover, digital marketing
has also impacted RBNs in the world where digital technologies have become
part of our everyday life. It has helped SMEs to build different strategies and
variables that could help them obtain a competitive advantage.

While there are signs that the industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore have built
competitive advantages by utilising RBNs and digital marketing, there has
been a little attempt on using digital marketing to help enable RBNs, resource-
based theory and building competitive advantages.

2.8. Digital marketing tool as an enabler for building competitive

advantages for SMEs

As more than one-third of the world population uses digital marketing tools in
their daily life (Zahoor & Qureshi, 2017), the basic relationship-based network
theory (RBN), which, for decades, has explored how people interact with each
other, remains unchanged (Zhang et al., 2019). In the unique environment of
Singapore, where digitalisation has rapidly taken place in recent years, digital
marketing tools have affected RBNs and assisted the industrial supplies SMEs
in Singapore to gain competitive advantages, as discussed earlier.

33
However, Veronica et al. (2018) argued that just building digital marketing
capability is not enough. More work needs to be done for B2B businesses as
this type of business is more complex and requires much more work than just
building simple digital marketing tools (Pandey et al.,2020). SMEs need to
understand that with their limited resources, building digital marketing tools
might be a challenge. Even with adequate resources to build good digital
marketing tools, the tools can only assist them to build capabilities for their
business and enable them to develop competitive advantage. However,
Herhausen et al. (2020) highlighted that even though digital marketing could
help RBN to build competitive advantages, there are many gaps between the
practice and the ideal situation, but found evidence that digital marketing tools
could create sustainable competitive advantages for the industrial supplies
SMEs in Singapore.

Moreover, even with the availability of digital marketing tools, studies show
that SMEs do not keep up with the pace of digital development and therefore
could not fully utilize digital marketing tools to the fullest potential (Taiminen &
Karjaluoto, 2015). Therefore, for a successful digital marketing tool to build a
competitive advantage, the SMEs would need to understand the nature of the
tools before implementing the digital marketing tools and adopt the tools
appropriately to build sustainable competitive advantages (Järvinen et al.,
2012).

2.8.1. Customer acquisition

There are various digital marketing tools that can assist in customer acquisition.
One such tool is by searching the internet using a search engine such as
Google. Customers use a search engine to search for a product they need.
They then click on the search result that takes them to the website where the
product specification that matches their requirement is listed (Vieira et al.,
2019). The customer would then initiate communication with the SMEs through
the website to make further enquiries. This would assist SMEs that use digital
marketing tools as using digital marketing tools could help to integrate

34
customer relationship building that would help to acquire customers (Arli et al.,
2018).

From a managerial perspective, customer acquisition is a very important

variable. Because of their size, there are limits to the number of customers
that SMEs can acquire over the same period compared to larger corporations
(Thomas, 2016). However, with the assistance of digital marketing tools, the
customer acquisition process can be streamlined. This gives SMEs the
potential to acquire more customers over the same period, thus creating
competitive advantages. However, customer acquisition can also be heavily
affected by RBNs (Kuo et al., 2020), as potential customers could reject
purchasing products from a new supplier if they have no network relationship
with them; they may not wish to deal with them.

In summary, SMEs could utilise digital marketing tools as a bridge to build

formal or informal networks with potential customers initially, and thereafter,
use their relationship-based networks for customer acquisition. This would
help to increase the number of customers the company has and ultimately
create competitive advantages for the SMEs.

2.8.2. Brand visibility

Digital marketing tools play a huge role in supporting brand visibility. One such
example is the company website and its content, which is always available at
any time of the year without any limitation on the location of potential
customers (Scheers, 2018). These characteristics of websites enable brand
visibility. However, as previously mentioned, just having a website is
insufficient. SEM should be used to attract more potential customers to the
website through various techniques.

In addition, using a blog, social media, website directories and digital word-of-
mouth could also enhance brand visibility. However, according to Couto and
Ferreira, (2017), SMEs do not see marketing as a way to increase brand
visibility, instead, customer involvement, satisfaction and building RBNs could

35
be the main factors that promote brand visibility of SMEs (Todor, 2016). In the
current digital age, digital marketing tools could enhance brand visibility
(Routray, 2020), which is needed to address the competitive environment
today (Negoit et al., 2018).

Therefore, if digital marketing tools can be used to enhance brand visibility,

more potential customers will become aware of the company. In turn, there
would be more opportunities for SMEs to have customer involvement and to
build RBNs; this would help SMEs build competitive advantages.

In summary, digital marketing tools could be used to increase brand visibility

in the current digital age. However, other factors such as customer
involvement, satisfaction and using RBNs could also be major factors in
increasing brand visibility and ultimately contributing to building competitive
advantage for the SMEs.

2.8.3. Going global

In the current competitive environment, companies have been going global to

continue growing their company (Lis et al., 2012) and to remain competitive
(Suh & Kim, 2014). Digital marketing tools can help a company to simplify the
process of global expansion and make it easier for SMEs to access the global
market (Aini & Hapsari, 2019). The benefit of using digital marketing tools is
that there is no location limitation (Scheers, 2018).

In the current digital age, where information is readily available, there is higher
competition as businesses are not only competing locally. This is especially
true in Singapore (Sim et al., 2003). Instead, they are competing against the
rest of the world with the help of digital marketing tools. By going to the global
market, SMEs could create a competitive advantage to benefit the company
long term (Sui & Baum, 2014) In addition, SMEs could also tap into RBNs to
go global (Veilleux et al., 2012), which would facilitate a quick and smooth
process for the SMEs to globalise (Liñán et al., 2020).

36
From the managerial perspective, as SMEs go global, market awareness
globally would increase and this would help with brand visibility, as well as
increase the potential for customer acquisition in the bigger global market (Aini
& Hapsari, 2019). This, in turn, would help to build confidence in terms of
company branding and would benefit the company by giving them the option
of using a global strategy as a competitive advantage.

In summary, the current competitive market has forced SMEs to go into the
global market to remain competitive. By doing so, SMEs can improve their
market share, awareness, brand visibility and brand creditability. In addition to
using RBNs to facilitate a quick and smooth globalisation process, with the
help of digital marketing tools, SMEs will be able to connect globally.
Furthermore, it is much easier to build RBNs with digital marketing tools and
hence achieve the benefits of going global with ease. This could ultimately
build competitive advantages for SMEs.

2.8.4. Customer satisfaction

There is much literature that identifies customer satisfaction as a competitive

advantage for the business. One such way to achieve customer satisfaction is
to understand the customer’s needs and fulfil them (Varadarajan, 2020).
Digital marketing tools are important in this regard (Constantinides, 2006;
Nikunen et al., 2017).

However, Constantinides (2006) added that increased global competition

combined with unpredictable consumer behaviour has seen relationship-
based strategies help companies understand their customers better and
improve customer satisfaction. Companies need to communicate with their
customers to be competitive (Fjellström et al., 2020). Customers who are not
satisfied cannot be expected to have good working relationships with the
company (Palmatier et al., 2006).

According to Chong et al. (2018), digital marketing tools can be very

successful inputs for achieving customer satisfaction. There is evidence that

37
high levels of customer satisfaction can be due to using digital marketing tools,
as they can enhance communication (Aini & Hapsari, 2019) and
understanding (Constantinides, 2006) and provide a better customer
experience (Veronica et al., 2018), which would help the company achieve a
competitive advantage.

From a managerial perspective, having a productive RBN with the customers

can help to enhance the coordination between the company and the customer,
and improve customer satisfaction (Fung et al., 2007). By understanding
customer needs, the company could also improve their customer service to
obtain customer satisfaction with the help of digital marketing tools (Hassan et
al., 2019).

In summary, using RBNs can help to enhance communication and cooperation

with customers. This can be achieved by understanding customer needs with
the help of digital marketing tools. This will easily result in higher customer
satisfaction and customer retention, as customer experiences improve by
maintaining a productive RBN.

2.8.5. Sales revenue

Most SMEs in general lack the budget for a range of purposes, from expanding
their business to investing in technologies to improve business processes.
Many SMEs face challenges in gaining access to additional working capital
and struggle to manage their working capital (Goh, 2018). In any scale of
business, a strong and supportive financial system is required for the
development, and strengthening of the supply chain and to counter or survive
any crisis within the company or in the market (Sonwalkar & Soni, 2017).

According to Musa & Pujawan (2018), financial resources can help to create
competitive advantages. Financially savvy businesses can spend resources
to gain a competitive advantage and have superior performance in their
industry (Lee et al., 2015; Nuryakin, 2020; Yang et al., 2018). In the case of
digital marketing tools, there is an indirect relationship between digital

38
marketing tools and sales revenue. As discussed earlier, digital marketing
tools can help SMEs with customer acquisition as well as customer satisfaction,
which would help SMEs to increase and retain customers.

With an increase in the customer base and retention of current customers,

there would most likely be an increase in sales revenue. The company could
potentially use the additional financial resources to create resilience to market
uncertainty; the company would have adequate finances to support RBN
building, which would provide a stable environment for SMEs to continue
building more networks to expand their business and generate competitive
advantages.

In summary, an increase in sales revenue could assist SMEs by providing

additional resources to align with the company’s long term strategy in the
current competitive environment. The company would also need extra
financial resources from sales revenue to continue with their daily activities
and also to create competitive advantages for the SMEs.

2.8.6. Product and services appeal

From the customer perspective, the question of how to use digital marketing
tools to assist SMEs to make their products and services more appealing is
not as straightforward. In the context of B2B business, different stakeholders
will have different objectives (Jussila et al., 2014). According to Habibi et al.
(2015), the digital marketing tools that are used should assist customers to
facilitate decision making about whether to purchase the products they need.
This would be assisted by the quality of the product, customer interaction and
brand credibility, which could be enhanced by digital marketing tools and
relationship-based networks.

To leverage relationship-based networks, certain decision making could be

influenced by the managers of B2B operations (Chong et al., 2018). An RBN
could have a positive impact on the appeal of products and services (Nuryakin,
2020). Nuryakin (2020) has further suggested that to achieve high product and

39
services appeal, businesses should understand the needs of their customers
and present suitable solutions that appeal to customers. Given the complex
technical requirements of the SMEs’ customers, digital marketing tools such
as the company website should have adequate information available so that
potential customers can assess whether the company has a potential solution
for them to consider.

However, as not all information can be listed on a website, some of the

technical requirements may need company personnel to take physical
measurements on the customer’s site. That is, personal interaction would be
required to build the appeal of the products and services. It follows, therefore,
that it is just as important to build RBNs and employ individuals to build
relationships with the customers as it is to use digital marketing tools.

In summary, digital marketing tools can make products and services appealing
to the customer. However, RBNs also influence the appeal of products and
services. This is especially true given the highly technical requirements of the
customers, and when a physical presence might be required to take a certain
technical measurement. By using digital marketing tools effectively, a
company may be able to provide solutions for customers without needing a
physical presence on their site to take technical measurements. Using digital
marketing tools and also building RBNs could increase the appeal of the
company’s products and services to customers, which, in turn, could build
competitive advantages for the SMEs.

2.8.7. Brand credibility

The customers experience is very important in building brand credibility among

existing customers (Dwivedia et al., 2018). A positive customer experience
can add to the credibility of the brand. Understanding the customers’ needs
enables the company to create a positive experience for customers (Anees-
ur-Rehman et al., 2017; Nuryakin, 2020). Building a relationship with the
customer would further enhance the customer’s experience, leading to

40
enhanced communication, which would, in turn, generate a competitive
advantage (Cortez et al., 2020).

Cortez et al. (2020) further argued that positive customer experience could
come from digital word-of-mouth through digital platforms such as social media,
thus improving brand credibility. Hassan et al. (2019) found that B2B
customers preferred sources of information that had been approved and
validated by the market. However, brand credibility does not always depend
on the customer experience and reviews by the customer (digital word-of-
mouth): brand credibility must also be built by offering customers the best
quality of products and services (Shi et al., 2017).

Customers prefer to work with credible brands as they want a stable source of
suppliers and a pleasant experience, so they will normally find a credible brand
if they have new requirements.

In summary, brand credibility is built fundamentally on the quality of products

and services offered by the company. However, digital marketing tools can
quickly disseminate positive feedback from customers through digital word-of-
mouth to potential customers. RBNs can also assist in further enhancing the
customer experience, which would also help in increasing brand credibility,
thereby, creating competitive advantages for the SMEs.

2.8.8. International appeal

There is much literature that discusses going international. In the current digital
age alongside globalisation, consumers are transitioning towards the global
market (Fjellström et al., 2020; Liñán et al., 2020). In addition, Liñán et al.
(2020) stated that SMEs face competition from large local and foreign
companies as, due to their size, SMEs often have difficulty in capturing export
markets and overcoming trade barriers. The global market tends to be
dominated by big multinational corporations. However, SMEs often have an
edge over big corporations due to the speed and flexibility of their decision-
making processes. This could potentially be a competitive advantage in the

41
fast-moving digital world today, where customers want a response as quickly
as possible regardless of the location of the company.

From the perspective of the customers, the advantage of internationalisation

includes better access to standardised marketing information with larger and
more diverse markets, which may help them source products at more
competitive prices, with shorter lead-times and better logistical solutions
(Popescu, 2019). Customers will no longer restrict their choices to just local
suppliers: they will also look for companies that have an international presence,
in the expectation that their pricing would be more competitive. However, not
only do digital marketing tools help to create international appeal, RBNs assist
in building international appeal given that SMEs build RBNs globally –
expanding their networks internationally (Veilleux et al., 2012).

In summary, digital marketing tools can help customers to find the most
suitable products and services for their needs. In addition, customers can also
investigate RBNs. Companies that have international RBNs will enhance their
international appeal. Both digital marketing tools and relationship-based
network theory would help to build a company’s international appeal and,
hence, its competitive advantages.

2.8.9. Customer loyalty / retention

Customer loyalty is closely influenced by customer satisfaction and satisfied

customers (Bahadur et al., 2018). To achieve customer loyalty, companies
need to ensure customer satisfaction (Jokela & Söderman, 2017). To
strengthen customer loyalty, a company could build a relationship-based
network with the customer to further enhance long-term customer loyalty
(Hlefana et al., 2020).

In addition, Hlefana et al. (2020) acknowledge that building relationships with

customers can help retain customers as they are more loyal and want to
maintain a good relationship with the company. Forming good RBNs would
benefit both customers and suppliers as they could potentially expand their

42
networks through informal gatherings. Having a mediator to assist in
expanding their network could result in SMEs expanding their network and
potentially changing informal relationships into formal customer relationships
by acquiring the customers.

There are many studies that state that digital marketing tools could help to
build customer loyalty and retention (Nuseira& Refae, 2022). Nikunen et al.
(2017) concluded that website marketing and email marketing are the main
factors that contribute to building customer loyalty and retention. Website
marketing engages customer interest and email marketing gathers feedback
and enhances customer engagement. These tools enable the company to
better understand the customer and achieve greater customer satisfaction,
thereby increasing customer loyalty.

Although some studies argue that the quality of products and services, price
and brand image are also significant drivers of customer loyalty (Tu & Hsu,
2013), digital marketing tools could help to achieve good service quality
through a better understanding of customer needs (Cortez et al., 2020;
Fjellström et al., 2020; Routray, 2020), helping to benchmark against prices
and building brand credibility (Hassan et al., 2019), Geiger and Finch (2011)
argued that some buyers do not see any potential in maintaining relationships
with suppliers where their focus is mainly on prices of the item they purchase.
However, due to the nature of the industry, customers not only focus solely on
the price factor, the overall services and quality should also be taken into
consideration.

In summary, although the quality, price and brand image of the products and
services offered must be able to meet customer expectations to maintain
customer loyalty and retention, RBNs also have a very important role in
achieving customer loyalty and retention. Digital marketing tools could further
help by enhancing communication and engaging customers’ interest, and, in
turn, help to build competitive advantages for the SMEs.

43
2.8.10. Value for money

From the customer perspective, the definition of products and services that
offer value for money can be identified as efficiency and effectiveness
(McKevitt, 2015). The efficiency level that customers are looking for would be
subjective. Brand credibility could affect customers’ perception of whether the
products represent value for money (Chekalina et al., 2018; Dwivedia et al.,
2018).

The customer would consider pricing and customer service levels.

Understanding the customer through frequent communication with them and
tailoring the customer service level based on the expectations of the customer
could increase efficiency (Chuah et al., 2014; Xu et al., 2014).

The effectiveness of the products and services could be determined by their

quality and whether the products supplied can perform the intended job – that
is, meet the highly technical specifications. The industrial supplies SMEs in
Singapore that serve customers must have good technical knowledge,
understand the customers’ requirements and respond to the customer’s
enquiries. The value for money perspective could also be influenced by the
relationship between customers, as the value of the products and services is
perceived highly by customers’ satisfaction (Hlefana et al., 2020). Thus,
building strong relationships with customers could build a competitive
advantage (Ismail et al., 2014).

In summary, customers are looking at many aspects of the products and

services provided by their supplier, including their quality, pricing, brand
credibility and customer service level. These characteristics can be enhanced
by the use of digital marketing tools. Thinking about RBNs, the customer would
also take into consideration the current relationship they have with their
existing suppliers and their past performance; these could help them to
determine if the items they are buying represent value for money or not. When
customers acknowledge that the product and services provided are value for
money, this would create competitive advantages for the SMEs.

44
2.9. Research gap

The literature review has unveiled the benefits of using RBNs in helping SMEs
acquire new customers using informal relationships, from bridging through
current networks in social activities (Zhang et al., 2019), then converting such
contacts into business relationship. This traditional marketing method is used
by most SMEs in the Singapore environment presently. However, in the B2B
environment, customer relationships tend to be deeper due to the
customisation effort needed (Lilien, 2016). This would suggest that
relationships alone cannot sustain the business, especially given the heavy
digitalisation occurring in Singapore. Although there has been an increase in
studies involving the exploration of relationship-based networks from the
perspective of resource-based theory (Burt & Soda, 2021), there is lack of
studies conducted in Singapore to date despite the focus on industrial sectors
in recent years.

The literature review has also unveiled the benefits of digital marketing tools.
However, it is questionable whether the industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore
would be similar because of the differences in unique business environments
affected by the high cost of operation and limited market-size. The current
studies mainly focused on using digital marketing tools as standalone tools
(see Appendix 1), focusing purely on them as a resource of the company.
Because the traditional marketing practice of using RBNs to conduct business
is widespread in Singapore, there is a gap in the literature on digital marketing
and relationship-based network theory using RBT as the underpinning theory.

In addition, as suggested by Dumitriu et. al. (2019), the current digital

marketing literature on building RBNs using digital marketing tools strategically
is inadequate. There is also a research gap in identifying the prominent digital
marketing tools and the role that digital marketing tools could potentially play
in building and maintaining RBNs of the industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore
using the underpinning theory of RBT, the current literature provides an
understanding of how RBN helps relational marketing and using digital
marketing tools could potentially assist relational marketing or move the selling

45
towards a more transactional nature instead. As the current practices of using
digital marketing tools might also differ from ideal digital marketing capabilities
(Herhausen et al., 2020) and this probes this research to uncover the potential
gap that was unexplored, especially in the RBN heavily reliant practice in
Singapore.

In summary, there is a gap in the current digital marketing literature that has
been reviewed in understanding the link between digital marketing tools and
RBNs as a resource of the company. An in-depth investigation could help
understand how they could create various benefits to the industrial supplies
SMEs in Singapore. In addition, as discussed by Herhausen et al. (2020),
there might potentially be a misalignment between the ideal and practical and
this study would hope to uncover. In the current literature, there are lack of
studies done in Singapore on industrial supplies sector, despite the
government’s efforts to promote manufacturing in Singapore (Yong, 2021), the
failure to look into industrial supplies would mean potential hinder towards the
growth of manufacturing in the downstream of industrial supplies.

2.10. Chapter summary

This chapter has provided an understanding of the Singapore environment

and how relationship-based networking could benefit the industrial supplies
SMEs in Singapore by helping them to acquire and retain customers. It also
examined the commonly used digital marketing tools and how they can assist
SMEs in building capabilities to achieve competitive advantage.

This review also uncovered the impact of the current digital age where many
customers are targeted by digital marketing tools. This could affect RBNs and
the challenges of applying digital marketing in the business. Therefore, this
review has given the thesis a direction: to explore the combination of RBT and
RBNs by using digital marketing tools as an enabler to build capabilities that
could create competitive advantages.

46
CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.1. Introduction

This chapter introduces the research paradigm, philosophical underpinnings,

research design and methodology of the thesis. The data collection and
analysis methods that were used in the thesis are also explained.

3.2. Research paradigm and design

Moore (2011) defines learning from observing behaviours. There are many
potential definitions of a philosophical paradigm (Morgan, 2007). Morgan
(2007) further explains that the constitution of paradigm is a series of struggles
between competing interest groups, whereas Masterman (1970) identifies as
many as 22 terms of research paradigm. Burrell and Morgan (1979) describe
an objectivist as one who can view aspects of the world from external reality,
and a subjectivist as one whose view of the world is socially constructed and
can only be comprehended from the perspective of those directly involved
(Bryman & Bell, 2007). This research philosophy is a belief about the way in
which data should be gathered, analysed and used (Dudovskiy, 2018) and it
also makes certain assumptions about the purpose of research (Mackenzie,
2012) as the nature of reality can be arguable from the subjectivist viewpoint
(Stroud, 2000).The research philosophy of the researcher also affects how the
researcher applies different strategies to gather and analyse the data to
achieve the research objective (Robert, 2010).

In this thesis, the aim and objectives are first, to explore the prominent digital
marketing tools; second, to understand how digital marketing affects the SMEs
strategically and also what kind of benefits it provides; and last, to find out how
effective digital marketing tools are for the industrial supplies SMEs in
Singapore from both the owner-managers’ perspectives and the customers’
perspectives.

47
Given that digital marketing tools have been evolving rapidly over the past
years, the trends might change due to new, emerging tools (Monnappa, 2021).
For this reason, cross-sectional methods are used in this study. During the
period of the data collection, the researcher have noted in mind that there
might be new digital marketing tools which might gain popularity within the
SMEs communities in Singapore. Thus, during the interview, the researcher
should verify if the participant are still using the digital or if the digital marketing
tools were adopted only recently.

In order to ensure a valid interview and to provide insightful responses to

achieve the research aim and objectives, participants must be using digital
marketing tools. This created a need to qualify participants’ backgrounds
before engaging them for the interview phase, to ensure that all participants
were in fact using digital marketing tools.

The research looked into their digital marketing presence using web tools such
as search engines and website directory to determine if the participant was
suitable for the study. This was followed by an interview-qualifying email for
owners and managers of the SMEs (Appendix 2) and an interview-qualifying
email for the customers that were buying industrial supplies (Appendix 3). Sent
before engaging in an interview, these emails ensured that all participants
would be able to provide insightful information on the prominent tools of digital
marketing and how they affect SMEs strategically to create benefits for the
SMEs.

3.2.1. Post-positivism paradigms.

In this thesis, a qualitative research approach is adopted from the social

science domain. Understanding of the world is considered to derive from
human experiences, which are of great importance as bases for the growth of
knowledge (Fox, 2008). In post-positivism, knowledge is generated through
careful observation and measurement of the objective reality (Creswell &
Creswell, 2018) and obtaining human interpretation of objects, events and
trends (Holtz & Odağ, 2020). This paradigm provides the research with an
48
opportunity to identify and access the causes that influence the outcome (Cao,
2021; Creswell & Creswell, 2018). In this study, the research objective is to
identify the prominent digital marketing tools that the industrial supplies SMEs
in Singapore are using and investigate how the owners/managers’ perceptions
on digital marketing tools affect their strategy and the effectiveness of the tools.
The paradigm adopted explores the objectiveness of what digital marketing
tools were used. It also accepts that although there might be prominent tools
that are used within the industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore, each individual
might be using them differently and have a different objective even when using
the same digital marketing tools.

In order to achieve the research aim and objectives in the industrial supplies
SMEs in Singapore in particularly RO1, a post-positivism paradigm is adopted
in this thesis. It requires interpreting the data collected from the participant,
being an objective method of identifying the prominent digital marketing tools
used. However, in order to investigate into in-depth understanding of how the
prominent digital marketing tools were used strategically. According to Bryman
and Bell (2007), personal experience was used to reinforce the method applied
to study social reality and beyond. This would provide an understanding of the
individual (O’Donoghue, 2007) and provide insightful findings regarding the
other research objectives in particularly RO2 & RO3, constructivism paradigm
is linked this research.

3.2.2. Constructivism paradigms.

The main idea of constructivism paradigm is a theory of cognition which has

the idea that knowledge does not have the purpose of producing
representation of an independent reality (Fosnot, 2005). This is because
constructivists consider the world as constructed by human beings with their
context and therefore would defer as individual interpretation were affected by
their own views of the world (Fox, 2008). Guba and Lincoln (1998) argued that
when the research concerns human activity the constructivist paradigm is best
suited paradigm. Hence, as the aim of this study (RO2 & RO3) reveal the

49
perspective of both owners/managers of the industrial supplies SMEs in
Singapore and the customers perspective, constructivism is an appropriate
paradigm to explain why individual stakeholder prefers and adopt digital
marketing tools into their business strategy to create sustainable competitive
advantage as well as their perception of effectiveness of the digital marketing
tools used. Moreover, constructivism also frames the data analysis as a
constructed knowledge emerges from the different perspective of
owners/managers perspective and the customers’ perspective.

3.3. Qualitative research approach

This thesis is explorative in nature. According to Bhaskar (2008), knowledge

is viewed as a surface, which must be explored in depth to understand fully,
explore the issue and identify patterns from one study that could link to another
study (Matowe, 2019; Saunders et al, 2019). For instance, in qualitative
interview techniques, the interviewer’s role is to encourage each respondent
to freely share their story and their emotions as this helps to gain an insight
into how people feel and think about the research topic focus (Brennen, 2017).
All interviews should achieve the goal of answering the research question
(Blakeslee & Fleischer, 2019), as the aim of this thesis is to explore and
understand in-depth how digital marketing tools play a role in the industrial
supplies SMEs in Singapore, the research is focused on understanding how
the owners/managers perspective and getting to know their experiences in
using the digital marketing tools. Therefore, qualitative research method is
chosen because it allows the adaptation of the interaction between the
researcher and the participant. The participant can provide a response in their
own words, which can lead the researcher to ask more in-depth questions to
better understand the issue. Given the explorative nature of the research, a
qualitative research method offers a better understanding (Serapioni, 2021)
than quantitative research, where participants are for example, forced to make
choices from amongst pre-conceived responses (Mack et al., 2005).

50
Therefore, the method used was a qualitative approach because the aim of
this thesis is to explore and understand in-depth how digital marketing tools
play a role in the industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore. However, as the
researcher is also a practitioner in the field being researched, there was the
potentiality for bias to be present in the research process. For example,
participants may have felt obliged to provide a positive response as they have
had other business dealings with the researcher and, should this occur, it may
affect the research outcome. This could be avoided by letting the participants
know in advance that the researcher is totally independent; their input will only
be used for research purposes; their responses will be confidential; and the
information provided would not be used to affect them in any way.

In addition, as has been argued by many researchers in the social science

domain, there might be confirmation bias or culture bias present, thus the
research should always be open-minded and focus on the research aim and
objectives (Serapioni, 2021). Therefore, to ensure the validity of the research,
a more in-depth discussion will be discussed in section 3.9, after the
discussion on data collection and analysis.

3.4. Data collection & sampling approach

In this research participants were selected through purposive sampling. This

was done in acknowledgement that data collection is crucial in all research
and that it is impossible for data analysis to make up for improper data
collection (Tongco, 2007). There are many considerations relating to the data
collection method, from the sampling collection methods to identifying suitable
participants for the study. Finding appropriate participants was not an easy
task as SMEs, by their nature, are not easily identified from business
directories. Furthermore, in the industrial supplies sector, there is a wide range
of different industrial suppliers with different business environments, although
there are around ten thousand business entities under the targeted 2 SICC
codes, the SICC codes covers a wide range of industrial supplies and it is not
possible to further categorised the industrial supplies based on the type of

51
products they carried. Therefore, there are many other businesses that were
not in the interest of this research in the targeted 2 SICC. In order to remove
the businesses that are not related to the research in the most efficient way,
purposive sampling were applied and based on the research and the
understanding of the researcher, companies were identify and qualifying
questions (see Appendices 2 and 3) were used in order to verify if the potential
participants were appropriate persons and that they could contribute to the
research aim and objectives.

As the research involved digital marketing tools and owner-managers of SMEs

in the industrial supplies sector in Singapore, the sampling selection criteria
needed to be carefully chosen. Participants needed to possess the required
qualities and be willing to provide information by virtue of their knowledge and
experience (Bernard, 2011). There was no easy access to information on
SMEs in Singapore and the range of industrial supplies is very wide. In order
to obtain the correct range of industrial supplies for the research, the first steps
were to source company information from www.thegreenbook.com and
www.yellowpages.com.sg, and then conduct validation checking on the
company websites of the potential participants. Firstly, to check on the product
range match the abrasive and cutting tools, and to understand the products
and services offered was the focus of this study. This was also done to ensure
that the potential participants could be found using digital marketing tools,
Website marketing/Website directory.

The next step in identifying relevant participants was to establish whether it

was likely that they would understand the prominent digital marketing tools,
and the benefits, disadvantages and effectiveness of using digital marketing
tools in the focus sector. After the companies were identified, attempts were
made to contact the owner or manager by email. A qualifying email was sent,
requesting contact and asking the owners and managers for an interview.
(Refer to Appendices 2 and 3.)

This sampling approach was adopted as the industrial supplies which deals
with abrasive and cutting tools are niche in Singapore and in order to achieve

52
the research objectives, participant has to be using digital marketing tools and
could be able to provide valuable insight and experience.

The data collection was structured into three processes. First, a pilot study
was conducted to validate the semi-structured interview format. This was
followed by actual data collection with the chosen owners or managers to
obtain their perspective. Lastly, interviews were conducted with customers for
their perspective as a means of validating the data collected from the owners
and managers.

3.5. Discussion of research ethics

There were some ethical issues that needed to be addressed about the
processes involved in the data collection. As the study involved interviewing
participants, it was important that ethical guidelines were established and
followed, as discussed below.

3.5.1. Potential ethical problems with interviews and ethical

considerations undertaken to support the participants

During the purposive sampling, owners or the managers gave their permission
for the research interview to be conducted within the company. This was not
to automatically suggest, however, that the particular employees to be
interviewed would consent to be involved. It would not have been ethical to
conduct the interview without the consent from the participants themselves
(Vinson & Singer, 2004). Each individual must be briefed on the purpose of
the interview and other issues, such as the strict confidentiality of the
information and the commitment that it would not be used for any other
purpose. As the interviews could potentially invoke negative emotions, there
was also a need to develop a strategy to deal with any such incident in a
positive way (Piper & Monin, 2006).

53
According to Allmark (2009), privacy and confidentiality, informed consent,
harm, dual roles, over-involvement, politics and power are the key ethical
issues to be considered when in-depth interviews are conducted. These
issues must be addressed appropriately throughout the whole research
process. In this research, every participant who was to be interviewed was
made aware that their identity would be kept anonymous, and their name
would not be identifiable (Oswaldo, 2021). In addition, they were able to
decline to answer any particular question if they felt uncomfortable. They were
assured that the interview data would be stored in a secure place that would
not be accessible by any third parties. Once the interview had commenced,
the participants were authorised to withdraw if they felt uncomfortable about
continuing. The whole process conformed to the Edinburgh Napier University’s
Code of Ethics and the wellbeing of participants was of the utmost importance.

3.6. The Interviews

The interviews were conducted between May 2020 and March 2021, due to
the global epidemic where Singapore has put a temporary halt in the
manufacturing and industrial sectors (Baker, 2020). Six managers and four
customers were interviewed. As the research is explorative and qualitative in
nature, a semi-structured interview was chosen as the main data collection
method. Such interviews allow participants to respond in a flexible way, and
therefore, the data collected is more in-depth. The experiences of the
participants are disclosed, providing a better understanding of the research
topic.

3.6.1. Primary data: Semi-structured interviews

The semi-structured interviews were conducted face-to-face, or by phone call

or video conference. As the current COVID-19 pandemic situation made
physical interaction difficult, options other than face-to-face interviews were

54
preferred. The managerial interviews were with the sales manager who used
digital marketing as part of their job for customer acquisition and customer
retention. That is, interviewees were only those who worked for industrial
supplies SMEs in Singapore and who were currently using digital marketing
tools for their customer acquisition and customer retention activities.

This method is consistent with the qualitative concept of understanding the

individual perception of digital marketing tools, which may involve personal
experience and perception (Gubrium & Holstein, 2012). However, as some
SMEs do not have clearly defined roles, qualifying questions would be asked
at the start of the interview to ensure suitability of the candidate.

Semi-structured interviews were chosen as the method for conducting the

interviews because they allow participants to freely share their views on the
subject. It was expected that the free-flowing nature of the interviews would
allow more issues to be identified while having a structure provided direction
for the participants to share relevant information. To reduce information bias
as the interviews were recorded either using voice recording or note-taking,
the transcribed narrations or notes were sent to the respondents for their
review to ensure accuracy.

3.6.2. Pilot studies

In this research, before the pilot testing stage, there was an additional pre-test
to verify if the interview questions were able to generate the appropriate
responses that would address the research aim and objectives. The pre-test
stage was undertaken initially with the supervisors of this thesis one month
before the pilot testing. This was followed by an interview with a volunteer who
was willing to assist in validating the research question one week before the
pilot testing. This pre-testing also served as a ‘warm up’ for the actual
interviews and established whether the terms that were to be used in the
interview questions were easily understood by the participant or not.

55
After conducting the pre-test, there were some modifications made to some
questions. It was considered that the initial semi-structured interview
questionnaire was not strategically structured, the responses gathered were
not of sufficient depth and, as a consequence, it was thought unlikely that the
research would be able to achieve the intended result. The interview
questionnaire was reorganised to address the three research objectives. More
potential probes were added to the questions (see Appendix 5) to increase the
possibility of more information being gathered from the interviews.

After the pre-test, the pilot studies were conducted successfully: the responses
gathered were considered sufficient to address the research objectives.
However, even after the pilot studies had been completed, additional potential
probes (see Appendix 5) were added as needed.

3.6.3. Data collection: the owners’/managers’ perspectives

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with the owners or managers of

the industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore. Their purpose was to identify and
understand the prominent digital marketing tools used by them; to profile their
understanding of how the digital marketing tools would assist them in terms of
shaping their strategy for the company, and last, to understand the
effectiveness of the digital marketing tools used by the industrial supplies
SMEs in Singapore and how they have benefitted the company holistically.

The interviews were conducted in English, as the participants were

comfortable sharing their experiences in this language. Voice recordings were
used to capture the interview with the permission of the participants; notes
were taken during interviews with the two participants who were uncomfortable
about being recorded.

The semi-structured interview with the owners or managers was started by

asking them about the different digital marketing tools that they were using
currently and the frequency with which they used them. This is to address
research objective RO1. It also helped the participants to become more

56
comfortable about speaking freely during the interview. Once the participant
had shown signs of being comfortable and ready to explore more deeply, the
interviewer moved to the next question: to understand how the digital
marketing tools affected their customer acquisition and retention.

The aim of the question was to understand the effectiveness of the particular
digital marketing tools. Ideally the interviewer would probe the participant to
share their experience of using the various tools and how the customers
responded. This was to address research objective RO2 and RO3.

The interview concluded with questions designed to elicit the participant’s

views about the effectiveness of using digital marketing tools for customer
acquisition and retention. This addressed research objective RO3, and
required the participants to clearly state if and how digital marketing tools had
helped them in customer acquisition and retention.

As the nature of the interview with the owners/managers of the industrial

supplies SMEs in Singapore were exploratory in nature to establish the
primary data, the length of the interview would be more lengthy than the
interview to collect the customer perspective (Refer to Appendix 6; Section 1).
This was mostly because the owners/managers would explain their stand on
using digital marketing tools and give their experience of how they have been
using the digital marketing tools and what responses they have gotten from
their customers.

3.6.4. Data collection: the customer perspectives

In addition to conducting interviews to collect data from owners and managers

and obtain their perspectives, dyadic approach was taken. The data was
analysed and taken into consideration in term of probes for the customer
perspectives. This was done for two reasons: to apply a triangulation
technique to capture the different perspectives on the application and
effectiveness of digital marketing tools and to cross-validate the data to ensure
the robustness of this thesis.

57
There were four responses from the customer perspective. Three participants
were based in Singapore and one participant was based in Malaysia. As
Singapore is a small country, customers in neighbouring countries such as
Malaysia also frequently buy supplies from Singapore. The language used in
these interviews was English as participants from both Singapore and
Malaysia were comfortable sharing their experience in this language. With the
permission of the participants, voice recording was used to capture the
interviews with two participants and note taking was used instead with the
other two participants as they were uncomfortable with voice recording.

The semi-structured interview with the customers started by asking them

questions about their daily tasks, whether they searched for potential suppliers
using a digital platform, what digital marketing tools they would normally use
to perform their job and how frequently they used such tools. Probes were
made to check on the results gathered from the owners and managers. That
is, data triangulation was undertaken to check the validity of the data gathered
for research objective RO1. Starting with a relatively straightforward question
helped the participants to become comfortable so that they would speak more
freely.

Next, questions were asked that related to understanding the customers’

perceptions of how digital marketing tools affected potential suppliers and their
decisions about qualifying new and existing suppliers. The interviews ended
with questions designed to elicit the participants’ views on how effective they
think that digital marketing tools are in helping them and their suppliers. These
questions related specifically to research objective RO3 and were designed to
encourage participants to express a clear view about how they have benefitted
from digital marketing tools and how they used them to source and maintain
their suppliers.

As the nature of the interview with the customers of the industrial supplies
SMEs in Singapore were more of a dyadic approach, the length of the
interview were shorter as customers interview were more targeted towards
understanding the different perspectives in the dyadic relationship between
the owners/managers and the customer and customers would be sharing more

58
on their perspectives on how they have use digital marketing tools that has
changed how they worked (Refer to Appendix 6; Section 2).

3.7. Interview design

In order to collect suitable data to answer the research questions, the questionnaire
was designed to investigate the three research objectives, as shown in Table 3.

Table 3

Questions scheduled for interviews with owner-managers of the industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore

Research objectives Questions Purpose of question

Validate that respondent Could you tell me about To confirm that the
is a suitable candidate. your job roles and respondent is an
responsibilities in your appropriate person to
company? participate.

RO1: To investigate the Could you tell me what To identify and

extent of prominent digital
marketing tools used by
SMEs.
RO2: To investigate the
extent to which digital
marketing tools benefitted
the SMEs and were a
strategic tool for them.
RO3: To investigate the
effectiveness of digital
marketing tools in
customer acquisition and
customer retention.
To identify other potential
issues that were not
raised during the
interview.
Note. Compiled and summarised by Author. Refer to Appendix 5 for more details.
digital marketing tool(s)
(for example, promoting or
maintaining a website,
social media, sending
emails, e-commerce, etc)
you use in your daily job
and how you are using
them?
Could you provide
examples of how the
*tools that was indicated
by the participant* have
helped you in your daily
job?
Could you give an
example of how
customers have
responded to your digital
marketing efforts?
Could you also tell me
what DM tools your
company has applied but
which were not effective in
acquiring and retaining
customers? Why were
they ineffective?
Are there other issues
with the use of digital
marketing tools that you
would like to share?
understand the prominent
digital market tools and
how they are being used.
To understand what kind
of strategic benefits digital
marketing deliver to the
SMEs.
To understand if digital
marketing tools are
effective in customer
acquisition and retention
activities.
To understand if the
participant has tried some
of the digital marketing
tools and failed.
To explore if there are any
unknown issues with
using digital marketing
tools.

59
Table 4 shows the important probes that were used during the interview to direct the
participant to provide their opinion and share their experiences as they related to RO
2. These questions enabled a deeper understanding of the participants’ experiences.

Table 4

Important probes scheduled for interview of owner-managers of the industrial supplies SMEs in
Singapore.

Probes Purpose of probes

How do you think *DM Tools
Stated* assist you in terms of
getting more customers?
How do you think *DM Tools
Stated* assist you in getting your
brand more visible in the market?
How do you think *DM Tools
Stated* assist you to get your brand
into the global/overseas market?
How do you think *DM Tools
Stated* help you achieve customer
satisfaction?
How do you think *DM Tools
Stated* assist you in increasing your
sales revenue?
To understand how the use of digital
marketing tools has impacted
customer acquisition activities of the
industrial supplies SME.
To understand how the use of digital
marketing tools has impacted the
brand visibility of the industrial
supplies SME.
To understand how the use of digital
marketing tools has impacted the
industrial supplies SME’s initiatives
to Go Global.
To understand how the use of digital
marketing tools has impacted the
industrial supplies SME in terms of
customer satisfaction.
To understand how the use of digital
marketing tools has impacted the
industrial supplier SME in terms of
sales revenue.

Note. Compiled and summarised by Author. Refer to Appendix 5 for more details.

Similarly, for the participants in the customer interviews, the questionnaire was
designed to consistently elicit responses from the participants that were in alignment
with the research objectives and to compare with the owner-managers perspectives,
as shown in Table 5 below.

60
Table 5

Question scheduled for interview of customers of the industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore.

Research objectives Questions Purpose of question

Validate that Could you tell me about To confirm that the
respondent is a your job roles and respondent is an
suitable candidate. responsibilities in your appropriate person to
company? participate.

RO1: To investigate the Could you tell me what To identify and

extent of prominent
digital marketing tools
used by SMEs.
RO2: To investigate the
extent to which digital
marketing tools
benefitted the SMEs
and were a strategic
tool for them.
RO3: To investigate the
effectiveness of digital
marketing tools in
customer acquisition
and customer retention.
To identify other
potential issues that
were not raised during
the interview.
are some of the ways
you find new suppliers
using digital means (for
example, using Google,
social media, online
directories, etc.) that
you are using in your
daily job and how you
are using them?
Could you give any
examples of how the
*tools that was stated
by participant* has
helped you in your daily
job?
What do you think
about supplier who are
using *DM Tools
Stated* vs suppliers
who don’t?
Are there any other
issues with the use of
digital marketing tools
you would like to
share?
understand the
prominent digital
marketing tools and
how they are being
used.
To understand what
kind of strategic
benefits digital
marketing provides to
the customer.
To understand if the
use of digital marketing
tools is effective in
increasing customer
acquisition and
retention.
To explore if there are
any unknown issues
with the use of digital
marketing tools.

Note. Compiled and summarised by Author. Refer to Appendix 6 for more details.

Table 6 shows the important probes that were used during the interview to direct the
participant to provide their opinion and share their experiences as they related to RO
2. These questions enabled a deeper understanding of the participants’ experiences.

61
Table 6

Important probes scheduled for interviews of customer of the industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore.

Probes Purpose of probes

How appealing would you find a
supplier if they used *DM Tools
Stated*?
How do you think *DM Tools Stated*
affects your opinion of their brand
credibility?
How do you think about searching for
suppliers globally using *DM Tools
Stated*?
How do you think *DM Tools Stated*
helps in retaining you?
Do you think the products and
services offered by a supplier that
was found using *DM Tools Stated*
were value for money?
To understand how the use of digital
marketing tools has impacted the
customer acquisition activities of
industrial supplies SMEs.
To understand how the use of digital
marketing tools has impacted the
brand credibility of industrial supplies
SMEs.
To understand how the use of digital
marketing tools has impacted the
industrial supplier SME in terms of
Going Global.
To understand how the use of digital
marketing tools has impacted the
industrial supplier SME in terms of
customer satisfaction.
To understand how the use of digital
marketing tools has impacted the
industrial supplies SME in terms of
sales revenue.

Note. Compiled and summarised by Author. Refer to Appendix 6 for more details.

All of these open-ended questions used a technique of follow-up questions in order

to encourage interviewees to expand their answers and provide as much detail as
possible.

3.8. Data analysis

The data collected on both the owner, manager and customer perspectives
were analysed by applying thematic analysis. Although using thematic
analysis software could assist to manage data, identify themes, overall
efficiency of analysis and identify relationships among generated themes

62
(Dollah et al., 2017), by providing thematic classification of data based key
words. However, many researchers prefer to use manual data analysis
because they believe that using technology does not help much in terms of
data interpretation (Dollah et al., 2017). Indeed, using software may cause the
researcher to become disengaged from the data that has been collected.

On the other hand, manual data analysis might be affected by researcher bias.
Software provides a more objective analysis. In order to reduce any researcher
bias in the data analysis and to ensure that the data has been accurately
transcribed from the recording, a copy of the transcript was emailed to the
participants for their review. (A more in-depth discussion of the validity of the
research is included in section 3.9.)

Manual thematic analysis was chosen for this research as the amount of data
collected was manageable and a manual thematic analysis was considered
sufficient. A detailed analysis is discussed in the following sub-section.

3.8.1. Thematic analysis

Data analysis was undertaken using thematic analysis as a method for

identifying patterns within the data and ultimately interpreting the various
aspects of the research topic (Braun & Clarke, 2006). Sandelowski (1995) also
stated that ‘There are no computations or power analyses that can be done in
qualitative research to determine a priori the minimum number of sampling
units required’. The main objective of the data gathering is to have sufficient
data for analysis and should be in relation to answering the research question
(Fugard & Potts, 2015), Braun and Clarke (2013) has suggested interviewing
6 to 10 participants, while other researchers suggested theoretical saturation
(Fugard & Potts, 2015).

The interviews that were voice-recorded were transcribed within the day of the
interview and recording by note-taking were sent over to straight after the
interview. This allowed for timely review by the interviewees, which was
especially important when there were any doubts about what was said in the

63
interview or the recording was unclear at any stage of the interview. The
researcher was able to doubly confirm the data with the participant to ensure
that the data collected were accurate.

Thematic analysis, a method for identifying, analysing and reporting patterns,

allowed for organisation and description of the data in detail (Clarke & Braun,
2018; Nowell et al., 2017). The data analysis undertaken for this thesis
adopted the phases of thematic analysis suggested by Braun and Clark (2006)
following the process flow illustrated in Figure 3. (A more detailed breakdown
is provided in the following sub-section and Appendix 7)

Figure 3

Thematic analysis process

Note. Adapted from using thematic analysis in psychology (p.87), by Braun and Clarke, 2006.
Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77–101.

It is important for researchers to be familiar with the depth and breadth of the
data (Braun & Clarke, 2006). Following the process shown in Figure 3, the
interviews were all conducted in a compacted timeframe and the recordings

64
were transcribed on the day of the interview. This ensured that the researcher
was familiar with the data. After the recorded interviews were transcribed, the
recordings were played back while the transcripts were read to make sure that
the transcription was accurate. Whereas, records by note-taking were read
repeatedly to ensure notes taken were clear and accurate.

The thematic analysis in this research was strictly guided by the process
illustrated in Figure 3. To assist in the familiarising of the interview data,
transcription of the interview was done manually by the researcher and then
confirmed. Furthermore, reading and understanding of the data were done in
various stages: firstly, reading to understand the content, followed by reading
with the agenda of addressing the various research objectives.

After further familiarising by repeating reading of the notes taken, transcript,

and playing back the recording, manual coding was undertaken. This was
done by highlighting the words or phrases that were interesting or important.
Different coloured markers were used to classify data for the different research
objectives. For example, a blue-based colour was used for highlighting data
relating to the first research objective: prominent digital marketing tools.
Different shades were used to indicate the nature of the response. For
example, a lighter shade was used for positive responses while a darker shade
was used for negative responses.

In the process of generating initial codes, a researcher should work

systematically through the entire data set giving equal attention to each data
item with respect to the research objectives (Braun & Clarke, 2006). This
process was repeatedly executed, as some words might have been missed
and might only be identified by going through the data a number of times.
When numbers for coding the data were generated, the coding was then
compared and grouped into different themes. For example, “using digital
marketing tools, it’s a door” and “linking us up” were grouped into the same
theme (refer to Appendix 7 for more details).

In this phase, the coding generated will be collated and sorted into themes
(Braun & Clarke, 2006) with the research objectives being kept in mind. The

65
data was thematically grouped and coded for ease of analysis (Braun & Clarke,
2021).

Figure 4

Thematic map.

Note. Thematic map created by Author based on the data analysis results.

In handling the reviewing of themes, a thematic map was created to better

illustrate the link between the coding and themes. From figure 4, the map
linked the digital marketing tools and how they affected the company
strategically as per the three ROs (oval shaped) with the kind of benefits the
tools created such as increasing existing customers’ interaction/ loyalty and
increase in customer acquisition (highlighted in green). The map also shows
the limitation of digital marketing tools as there are important factors that are
non-digital marketing related such as pricing and quality of products and
services (highlighted in red).

After the themes had been reviewed, the theme labels were further refined to
make the data easier to understand. The themes needed to be clear, specific
and relate to the overall meaning that the analysis provides. For example, “saw
your website” and “customer coming in” could be renamed “digital network
linkage” instead of “online presence”. This change made the theme clearer
during the data analysis (refer to Appendix 7 for more details). The thematic

66
map shows the full story of the data collected together with the final
classification of the themes. Further organizing of the themes and other
information further enhanced the progress of the thematic data analysis, as
shown in Table 7.

Table 7

Summary of themes and sub-categories.

Theme Sub-category
DM Tools • Website marketing tools
• Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
tools
• Website Directory / Social Media
tools
• Email marketing tools
• Digital Word of Mouth / Blog Tools
Strategic Benefits • Online presence
• Digital communication tools/
Relationship building tools
• Non-digital benefits (traditional)
Effectiveness of • Increase in customer acquisition
DM Tools • Increase in customer retention
• Not effective

Note. Thematic map created by Author based on the data analysis results.

After the theme and sub-categories had been completed, it was feasible to
develop a clearer understanding of the data gathered from the interviews.
Further analysis and the findings are presented and discussed Chapter 4.

3.9. Validity of the research

Given the explorative nature of the research, a qualitative research method

offers a better understanding (Serapioni, 2021) than quantitative research,
where participants are for example, forced to make choices from amongst pre-
conceived responses (Mack et al., 2005). Throughout the collection of data,

67
the researcher is aware of the different bias that might be present in the
research and in order to reduce bias, steps are taken to mitigate the bias.

Firstly, in order to reduce sampling bias, steps are taken to include both
genders in the interview. As this industry is a male dominant industrial, getting
female respondent is not easy. In this research, there is a good representation
of gender to reduce sampling bias. Secondly, in order to reduce confirmation
bias, the interviewee questions were carefully craft as such it does not present
with any form of “right-answer” and instead probes are crafted to encourage
the interviewee to share their personal experience, and this has reduce
potential confirmation bias. Thirdly, as this purposive sampling, involved
recommendation from the participant, in order to reduce participation bias, the
researcher has asked for customers to be interviewed before the interview with
the owners/managers and to reinforce the confidentially and anonymity of the
research to reduce potential bias. Lastly, to further reduce response bias,
during the interview, the researcher have to be careful not to show any form
of bias that might influence the participant, the interviews that is recorded and
transcribed were also sent back to the respondent for verification.

In all qualitative research, it is important to focus on the trustworthiness of the

research method (Bouncken et al., 2021), as data and outcomes will vary
depending on the participants and researcher (Shah & Corley, 2006). Analysis
of qualitative research cannot be judged on repeatability and replicability,
which are important factors for evaluating trustworthiness in quantitative
research. Boje (2019) explained that this is because qualitative research is
based on participants’ narratives of their experiences and their story-telling
process, which are dynamic and complex. As such, Lincoln and Guba (1985)
discussed four trustworthiness principles that are considered important and
have been commonly used by qualitative researchers (Nassaji, 2020). They
are credibility, transferability, dependability and confirmability.

Credibility in qualitative research concerns the extent to which the research

findings and conclusions could be considered to be believable (Nassaji, 2020).
It also means that the findings should reflect the reality of the phenomena that
were investigated (Nassaji, 2020). Steps should be taken to verify that the

68
findings are accurate and are supported by the data (Pitney & Parker, 2009).
In this study, triangulation was employed to enhance the credibility of the
research. This is one of the methods proposed by Nassaji (2020) to validate
the data against other participants. Triangulation involves using multiple data
sources. It can help to achieve a more accurate and complete understanding
of the issue under investigation (Bryman & Bell, 2007; Serapioni, 2021). The
triangulation involved comparing the perspective of owners and managers
from the industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore with the perspectives of the
customers from Singapore and one overseas customer who currently has
dealings with industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore, and also with the present
literature, as show in Figure 5.

Figure 5

Triangulation of three perspectives

Note. Diagram created by Author to showcase the application of data triangulation

Transferability concerns the extent to which the interpretation and the

conclusions of the research could be transferred to another similar context
(Pitney & Parker, 2009; Nassaji, 2020). However, since qualitative research is
interpretive and often participants are not representative of the larger
population, the findings cannot be generalisable (Lincoln & Guba, 1985),

69
although a detailed data set may be sufficient to allow readers to make a
judgement about the applicability of the results in a different context
(Wildemuth, 2016). In this thesis, the findings and the research methodology
are described in as much detail as possible so that additional data sets could
facilitate transferability.

Dependability is similar to reliability in quantitative research. It refers to the

consistency of data collection tools or measures. This is in contrast to
qualitative research, where the study should be reported in a way that a similar
interpretation would be derived by others if they were to review the data
collected (Nassaji, 2020). Proper documentation of all the activities in the
research process can improve dependability when the data gathered could be
audited by reviewers or audiences. In this research, the activities and the data
analysis have been documented in as much detail as possible to enhance
dependability. Personal memos and a reflection journal of the research
journey were also written and recorded.

Confirmability refers to describing the data and the findings in such a way that
the accuracy of the research can be verified and confirmed by others. One
useful strategy for achieving confirmability is that rational steps are taken in all
the research processes and the decisions made regarding the data coding and
analysis are kept and available for any further evaluation and confirmation
(Bradley, 1993; Nassaji, 2020). This is different from quantitative research,
where the emphasis is on breaking down the research process, so that the
quantitative research can be replicated with similar results (Nassaji, 2020). In
this research, the decisions and the steps taken were all recorded to improve
the confirmability of the data: audiences can review the steps taken in this
research and the decisions made.

In summary, steps were taken in this qualitative research to ensure the

trustworthiness of the research, in line with the thoughts of Lincoln and Guba
(1985). Credibility was enhanced by using the triangulation technique shown
in Figure 5. The semi-structured interview was used with the objective of
eliciting in-depth and detailed data to facilitate transferability. All

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documentation, processes and steps taken were properly recorded to increase
the trustworthiness of this research.

3.10. Methodology Limitation

In the process of the research, there were a number of incidents that occurred
in the midst of data gathering. A worldwide pandemic greatly affected how the
data were collected. The preferred data collection method was face-to-face
interviews. However, government orders to minimise human contact impacted
the interview plan and, as a consequence, video conferencing was substituted.
Where the participants did not have a device with which to conduct a video
call, a phone call was substituted instead. All interviews conducted were done
with participants’ consent and ethical guidelines were followed strictly. The
questions that were asked in both video-teleconferencing and face-to-face
interviews were the same to ensure the integrity of the data collected.

Not all potential participants were willing to participate in an interview.

Furthermore, as the working language in Singapore is English, it was important
that the potential participants were comfortable being interviewed in this
language. There was also a time limitation. Because this research was a one-
person effort, the interview period was extended to a period of ten months.
This was longer than initially envisaged because of the difficulty of finding
participants; many attempts to contact potential participants were rejected or
unanswered. In order to find overseas participants, participants from
Singapore were encouraged to recommend their friends in similar sectors.
Those recommendations were all qualified by the same parameters to ensure
fairness in the data collection. The flow of all the interviews remained the same
to reduce bias.

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3.11. Chapter summary

This chapter explains the research process and the paradigm underpinning
this thesis. Qualitative research was adopted using purposive sampling to
qualify suitable participants from both the owner-manager perspective and the
customer perspective. Participants were asked to take part in a semi-
structured interview. A pre-test study and pilot studies were undertaken to
ensure that the semi-structured interview was able to elicit data required to
fulfil the research aim and objectives.

The data collected were analysed by manual thematic analysis to produce

themes and sub-categories, with a thematic map to show the linkage between
themes. The analysis was further verified using data triangulation techniques
between two different types of participants (the owners and managers of the
industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore as well as overseas customers who
currently have dealings with these suppliers in Singapore) and the presently
available literature. To increase the trustworthiness of this thesis, data and
rationale for decisions were recorded so that the audience would be able to
use the findings for further evaluation and confirmation. The ethical
considerations and the methodology limitations were also addressed
appropriately. Having reviewed the methodology, the findings of this thesis are
presented in the following chapter.

72
CHAPTER FOUR: ANALYSIS AND FINDING

4.1. Introduction

In this chapter, the data presented is derived from data collected using the
semi-structured interviews with the owners and managers of industrial
supplies SMEs in Singapore as well as customers from both Singapore and
Malaysia that are currently buying industrial supplies. This chapter profiles the
demography of the participants, and then outlines the findings against each of
the research objectives from the owner-managers’ perspectives and then the
customer perspectives. The findings are summarised at the end of the chapter.

4.2. Demographic overview

The semi-structured interview for owners and managers of the industrial

supplies SMEs in Singapore were all conducted within Singapore. Table 8 is
the overview summary of the owners and managers of the SMEs interviewed.

Table 8

Demographic overview of the owners and managers of the SMEs participants.

Interview # Roles Date of How interview

interview was recorded
1 Owner 22 May 2020 Voice recording
2 Manager 30 Jul 2020 Voice recording
3 Owner 4 Aug 2020 Note taking
4 Owner 4 Aug 2020 Voice recording
5 Manager 1 Dec 2020 Voice recording
6 Manager 24 Feb 2021 Note taking

Note. Table created by Author to record owner-manager participants.

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The interviewees were the owners and managers that have direct involvement
in using digital marketing tools. At the start of the interview, there were
confirmation question to validate their involvement in using digital marketing
tools to ensure that they were a qualified respondent.

Interviewee 1 is a third generation owner of an industrial supplies company

that supplies abrasives. Currently, the company is serving customers from
different manufacturing and repair and overhaul industries located in
Singapore, He handles all sales and operations and is responsible for using
digital marketing tools to assist the business.

Interviewee 2 is a customer account manager of a family-owned industrial

supplies company supplying a range of products including abrasives and
cutting tools. Currently the company is serving customers from the
construction and manufacturing industries located in Singapore. He handles
all the sales, enquiries and feedback from customers. He is also in charge of
maintaining the company website and business development.

Interviewee 3 is an owner of an industrial supplies company supplying

abrasive and cutting tools to the manufacturing, construction, mining, and
repair and overhaul industries located in Singapore and Indonesia. He is
responsible for all the issues in the company. Currently he handles important
customers, operations, and creating business opportunities, such as using
digital marketing tools to enhance branding and generate enquiries.

Interviewee 4 is an owner of an industrial supplies company supplying

abrasive products to the manufacturing and the repair and overhaul industries
located in Singapore and the Philippines. He also handles sales, operations
and important customers, as well as marketing using traditional and digital
marketing tools to create business opportunities and enhance branding for
their company.

Interviewee 5 is a sales manager of an industrial supplies company supplying

safety products and a wide range of products for the manufacturing and repair
and overhaul industries, including abrasives and cutting tools. They currently
serve customers from the manufacturing, oil and gas, repair and overhaul
industry in Singapore as well as across Southeast Asia. He is also in charge

74
of generating ideas about how their digital marketing tools can be used to
create business opportunities and branding for their company.

Interviewee 6 is the sales and marketing manager of an industrial supplies

company supplying general hardware and safety products as well as cutting
tools to the manufacturing and the repair and overhaul industries located in
Singapore. He is responsible for serving customers as well as creating
marketing content for their various digital marketing tools and using digital
marketing tools to acquire more customers.

There are a total of six owners and managers from different SMEs who
participated in the interviews. Four of the six agreed to be recorded. Two were
unwilling to be recorded, so notes were taken and at the end of the interview,
the notes were shown to the participants so that they could verify that the notes
accurately recorded what they wanted to express, transcript of the recording
were also sent to the participants on the same day of the interview to verify the
transcription were accurate.

A total of four customers were interviewed. Two were not willing to be recorded,
so notes were taken and then verified at the end of the interview. As Singapore
is a small country and neighbouring countries such as Malaysia also regularly
buy supplies from Singapore, there was one participant from Malaysia
included in this study. He currently buys supplies from industrial supplies
SMEs in Singapore. His inclusion would provide a better understanding of the
context of how industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore work with neighbouring
countries. Table 9 (below) is the overview summary of the customers that were
interviewed.

75
Table 9

Demographic overview of the customer participants that purchase industrial supplies

Interview Roles Country Date of How interview

# interview was recorded

7 Sourcing Singapore 23 Feb 2021 Voice recording

Specialist
8 Factory Malaysia 1 Mar 2021 Note taking
Manager
9 Sourcing Singapore 5 Mar 2021 Voice recording
Manager
10 Buyer Singapore 14 Mar 2021 Note taking
Note. Table created by Author to record customer participants.

The customer interviewees were those who were directly involved in

purchasing industrial supplies. At the start of the interview, there were
confirmation questions to validate their involvement in using digital marketing
tools for their sourcing or procurement process to ensure they were a qualified
respondent.

Interviewee 7 is a sourcing specialist in the repair and overhaul industry

located in Singapore. His company mainly buys abrasive supplies. His daily
responsibilities include sourcing for new suppliers as well as maintaining the
existing suppliers, ensuring that they are able to fulfil their orders.

Interviewee 8 is a factory manager in the manufacturing industry located in

Malaysia. His company mainly buys abrasive supplies and cutting tools. His
daily responsibilities include ensuring production schedules, sourcing new
suppliers, maintaining existing suppliers, planning and purchasing of materials
for the factory.

Interviewee 9 is a sourcing manager in the repair and overhaul industry located

in Singapore. His company mainly buys abrasive supplies and cutting tools.
His daily responsibilities include managing technical engineers, fulfilling new
production requirements, negotiating for cost savings and productivity
improvements, sourcing new suppliers and maintaining relations with existing
strategic suppliers.

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Interviewee 10 is a buyer in the manufacturing industry located in Singapore.
Her company mainly buys cutting tools. Her daily responsibilities include
sourcing new suppliers as well as maintaining existing suppliers, ensuring that
they are able to fulfil their orders.

All 10 participants were interviewed within a timeframe of ten months. Table

10 below summarises the dates on which the interviews were conducted and
the type of semi-structured interview that was used, additional information can
be found in Appendix 6. There were two types of semi-structured interview
conducted: type A for the industrial supplies SMEs and type B for the
customers that currently purchase industrial supplies.

Table 10

Summary of the date and type of industry interview conducted

Interview # Date of interview Type of industry

interviewed
1 22 May 2020 Industrial Supplies

2 30 Jul 2020 Industrial Supplies

3 4 Aug 2020 Industrial Supplies

4 4 Aug 2020 Industrial Supplies

5 1 Dec 2020 Industrial Supplies

7 23 Feb 2021 Repair & Overhaul

6 24 Feb 2021 Industrial Supplies

8 1 Mar 2021 Manufacturing

9 5 Mar 2021 Repair & Overhaul

10 14 Mar 2021 Manufacturing

Note. Table created by Author to summarise all interviews conducted.

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The first five semi-structured interviews were with the owners and managers
of the industrial supplies SMEs. Then the primary focus moved to interviews
with customers. All 10 participants in the interviews had been working with
their company for at least two years and were directly involved in using digital
marketing tools. On this basis, they were deemed qualified to be respondents
for interview. It was felt that saturation point had been reached as the
participant given their responses that does not give more information towards
the research question (Guest et al., 2020).

The interviews with the owners/managers were stopped after six interviews as
the responses from later participants were similar to those of earlier
participants as no new codes emerge from the interviews (Given, 2016), in
relation to RO1, the mention of using website for customer acquisition were
repeated appearing from interview 4th to 6th and there are no new digital
marketing tools mentioned which were similar to interview conducted earlier.

This is constant throughout the other research objectives, where the interview
stated that digital marketing tools helps them with greater market awareness
which could potential generate into new sales and also helped them in giving
better customer services and improving customer relationship. The
owners/managers responses homogeneity towards the research questions of
the use digital marketing tools they have adopted. The responses in the
customer interviews reached a similar stage after four interviews. A more
detailed analysis of the data collected is included in section 4.3 (the
perspective of the owners/managers) and section 4.4 (the perspective of
customers).

4.3. Owners/Managers’ perspectives

In this section, the data collected from the owners and managers is analysed
in accord with the three research objectives.

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4.3.1. Prominent digital marketing tools used (RO1)

In this sub-section, the prominent digital marketing tools used by the industrial
supplies SMEs in Singapore are divided into two sub-sections covering
customer acquisition and customer retention from the owners/managers’
perspective.

4.3.1.1. Digital marketing tools used for customer acquisition

In regards to RO1 – to investigate the extent of prominent digital marketing

tools used by SMEs – the owners/managers indicated that the prominent
digital marketing tools used for customer acquisition are websites and search
engine marketing (SEM) tools, such as Google. Although there are some
SMEs that used different tools, such as posting their company profile in
business directories or using social media for customer acquisition, most
SMEs only used websites and SEM as their main digital marketing tool for
customer acquisition. Below Table 11 is the summary of the responses from
all the owners and managers.

Table 11

Summary of prominent digital marketing tools for customer acquisition used by the industrial supplies
SMEs in Singapore

Interviewee Website Email SEM Directory / WOM

# (Google) Social Media / Blog

1 X X

2 X X

3 X X X

4 X X

5 X X X

6 X X X

Total 6 0 6 3 0

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Note. Table created by Author to summarise the prominent digital marketing tools used for customer
acquisition from the owner-managers’ perspective.

The data gathered clearly indicates that both websites and search engine
marketing are normally used hand-in-hand. Interviewees 4 and 6 mentioned
that their website helps them create awareness and allows customers to know
that they existed. They used search engine optimization, which is part of the
search engine marketing tool kit, to help create awareness on the internet.

Having a website also helps in customer acquisition. Interviewee 2 stated that

new customers are repeatedly coming onto their website and sending
enquiries and this helps in customer acquisition. According to interviewee 3,
there are many more overseas enquiries through their website than local
enquiries because of the time difference and locality. Both interviewees 2 and
3 fielded many phone calls from new potential customers who stated that they
had seen the product they carried and got the contact information from the
website and would like to ask for more details. Interviewee 5 stated that having
a website helps them as they are able to publish more details, such as their
recent showcase on how their products are being used. Customers that saw
their showcase can also fill in their enquiry in the contact form on the website.
Interviewee 1 had provided an overview of his perspective on using a website
and search engine marketing tools by stating:

Most of the time the customers, when they come to us, the social media,
the website actually just leads us to the customer’s enquiry. There are
times they are not looking for the correct things or things like that. But
when we link up with them, then we ask them what they really want, so
from there on we can promote our product or services more efficiently.
But most importantly, the social media, the website is that they are able
to link us to the customers.

This highlighted that as industrial supplies are technical products, potential

customers might not find the most suitable products on the websites or from
digital marketing tools. They are marketing tools that can create awareness
and provide a link to potential customers.

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There are other digital marketing tools that were used in customer acquisition.
Website directories are one example. According to interviewees 3 and 6, being
included in such website directories gives them a worldwide presence and
helps them get noticed by potential customers. Interviewee 5 used social
media to post interesting showcase of their products; they capture the attention
of potential customers and direct them to the company website for more
information. These methods are, however, not widely used by industrial
supplies SMEs in Singapore.

There are also digital marketing tools which was not used by any of the
industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore such as email marketing and digital
word-of-mouth marketing. All of the interviewee do not use email marketing
tools as they think that using email marketing is not effective. Firstly, they
believed that their product are highly customised and technical and mass
sending of email would be ineffective as they have received many marketing
email on a daily basis which were not relate to the current situation. Thus, they
would find them disruptive to their daily operations and would not want their
potential customers to face the same frustration they are having. According to
interviewee 4, the bottom-line for customers to be looking for new products are
requirement and sending email does not helps as customers would either
search for new products using search engines (SEM) or would contact their
current suppliers directly. In addition, as for blog and digital word-of-mouth
marketing (WOM), the SMEs feedback that in their opinion, having a blog
might not be suitable for B2B context as the customers would not be interested
in their blog and they are not able to afford the resources that they would need
to create and maintain a blog and to create and maintain capabilities to build
digital WOM.

4.3.1.2. Digital marketing tools used in customer retention

Further to RO1, the prominent digital marketing tools used for customer
retention are websites and email tools. However, the general response from
the interviewees was that although digital marketing tools were used to assist

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in customer retention, other non-digital means such as pricing and quality of
the industrial supplies which are more important. Most interviewees indicated
that using relationship networks, pricing, quality and better customer service
were the main factors that contributed to customer retention and that digital
marketing tools only act to supplement them, by assisting communication and
enhancing the efficiency of customer retention. Table 12 is the summary of the
responses from all the owners and managers on this topic.

Table 12

Summary of prominent digital marketing tools for customer retention used by the industrial supplies
SMEs in Singapore

Interviewee Website Email SEM Directory W-O-M Others

# tools / Social Blog (Non-DM
Media tools)
1 X
2 X X
3 X
4 X X X
5 X X X
6 X X X
Total 4 4 0 0 0 5

Note. Table created by Author to summarise the prominent digital marketing tools used for customer
retention from owner-managers’ perspectives.

The data shows that the most widely used digital marketing tools for customer
retention are websites and email. Interviewee 4 stated that existing customers
would not go to their website or read their email unless they have new
requirements, for which they would need to source new products. In this
context, customers can go onto their website and search for products and
solutions whenever they encounter problems or need additional industrial
supplies for their operations. Interviewee 1 shared that customers are normally
busy and would normally not want to be disturbed, so, when they encounter a
problem they would look on their supplier’s website to find products that are
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suitable for them, followed by sending an email enquiry or making a phone call
to ask for more details.

In addition to customers surfing the company’s website, targeted sending of

marketing emails to existing customers enhances interaction between
suppliers and customers, as shared by interviewee 5. He stated:

We actually pull in together, for example, eight different types of

products for rental or equipment sales and we make it into a brochure
and we let the salesperson do his own email mass blast to the
customers. Surprisingly, the rates that came back are actually quite
high.

Some existing customers might only be aware of the particular product that
they are currently buying and not know of other products that they might
potentially need and that their supplier provides such products. Marketing
emails make customers aware of other products that the suppliers carry.
If/when they need such products, they would be able to look for these suppliers
or their website for more information. Thus the emails improve
communications and support customer retention.

However, interviewees 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 shared that although digital marketing tools

such as websites and emails help in customer retention, the most important
factor that affects customer retention is non-digital marketing. This might
include relationship networks, customer service and pricing among other
factors. Interviewee 4 stressed the importance of non-digital marketing when
he said:

You will need to retain customers through personal relationships and

not by e-methods because personal touch is important, visits are
important. You can be visited, they know you, they see you, they have
confidence in what you sell to them. They say your price is reasonable,
you are able to provide them with a good solution. You solve their
problem, then they are able to thank you for the solution you provided
and then they realise they need you.

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The other interviewees 2, 3, 6 also provided insightful experiences, such as:
“Over the years, we have been working with the customer and have a good
relationship in terms of working together” ; “Customers normally prefer to work
with suppliers they know”; “Customers continue to buy from us because of our
price and service”.

These are the most common sentiments shared by the interviewees 2, 3, 4, 5,

6 to show that in terms of customer retention, the focus on non-digital
marketing tools is much higher than on digital marketing tools. SMEs are using
digital marketing tools, such as websites and emails, to assist them even
though they focus on using non-digital marketing tools for customer retention.
Interviewee 5 stated that sending relevant emails to the customer constantly
would maintain communication and would open new sales opportunities.
However, there are digital marketing tools such as SEM tools, website
directory and digital word-of-mouth marketing are not used in customer
retention activities.

4.3.1.3. Overview of prominent Digital marketing tools used (RO1)

In summary, prominent digital marketing tools used by the industrial supplies

SMEs in Singapore for both customer acquisition and customer retention are
website marketing although the other tools differs between customer
acquisition and customer retention (see table 13).

Table 13

Summary of prominent digital marketing tools used by the industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore

Customer Acquisition Customer Retention

Website marketing Website marketing
SEM tools Email marketing
Directory / Social Media Others (Non-DM tools)
Note. Table created by Author to summarise the prominent digital marketing tools used from owner-
managers’ perspectives.

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For customer acquisition, website marketing tools are the most prominent and
favoured by industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore as they act as a linkage to
new potential customers. Search engine marketing tools support the website
by increasing traffic. Being able to be found on the internet by more people
means that there are more potential customers visiting the website, which aids
in customer acquisition. Websites and search engine marketing tools are used
together as a combined package by all interviewees. The typical flow is that a
search engine directs potential customers to their website; the potential
customer leaves their details and enquiry by completing a form on the website,
and then SMEs contact the potential customer to follow up on the enquiry.

Whereas for customer retention, websites and email marketing are the most
prominent and favourable digital marketing tools among the industrial supplies
SMEs in Singapore. They act as a tool to enhance communication with their
customers and improve communication, and in this they enhance customer
retention. However, focusing on non-digital marketing tools, such as
relationship networks customer service, pricing and other factors are more
highly favoured by the SMEs. The owners and managers feel that in order to
have good customer retention, digital marketing tools can only play a small
role compared to non-digital marketing activities.

4.3.2. Digital Marketing Tools and Strategic Benefits (RO2)

The prominent digital marketing tools used were investigated and identified as
mainly websites and search engine marketing for customer acquisition and
websites and emails for customer retention. This section relates to RO2, to
investigate the extent to which digital marketing tools benefitted SMEs as a
strategic tool.

According to all the six interviewees from the SMEs, website marketing and
search engine marketing worked hand-in-hand for customer acquisition,
whereas websites and emails were widely used for customer retention. The
first step was to create a website with company and product information. This

85
is followed by generating additional content such as pictures and write-ups on
the various products. These are the basics of the website marketing.

Search engine marketing helps by displaying relevant search results. The

engines look at the content of the website, so having website content that is
relevant is important to search engine marketing. In addition to relying on
search engines, paid display advertising is also available. By paying for a
“sponsor advertisement”, the search engine displays the company at the top
of the search results whenever someone searches on products that are
relevant to the industrial supplies.

Second, in terms of customer retention, email marketing and websites work

hand-in-hand according to the interviewees. Emails were usually sent to
existing customers informing them of new product launches, promotions or
case studies that might be of use to them. This helps to increase
communication between the supplier and the customer.

Interviewee 2 stressed that: “Our website will show up on the front page of the
Google so that’s why emails will come in from all those places”. Interviewee
2’s website has an enquiry form that directly converts the customer’s enquiry
on the website into email format. He could access the email and reply to the
customer’s enquiry directly. This is also consistent with other interviewees,
who provided similar experiences, such as: “I get customer feedback telling
me that they found us on the website”; “On and off people see the website,
people call in, they write you an email. Sometimes, people fill in the form, just
to create awareness”; “Normally customers will send us an email to ask more
about this product because we do have email, contact number, as well as a
fill-in page in our website, so they can actually use either means to contact us”.

Digital marketing is used as a strategic tool, first to create awareness, and then
to showcase the products and services of the company, and last, to convert
customers to the enquiry stage. It is similar to: “It’s just a door is an avenue for
us where we come to the customer”, according to interviewee 1. Other
interviewees had similar views.

This would help the SMEs expand their sales with more enquiries as the
company has greater visibility in the search engines. This is especially so if

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the company is at the top of a search result. This could help with brand visibility,
according to interviewee 6: “Be on the first page. This is like letting the
customers know that we have a very strong presence. I think this more or less
will let customers have a good impression.”

Search results can direct the customer into their website. The website
showcases the products and services. This would definitely increase sales as
the search engines and website help to generate more leads and enquiries.
This made the interviewee’s job easier as customers that have made enquiry
are more confident about the company’s products and services.

The common challenges that the SMEs faced were the lack of resources to
maintain their websites and the cost of buying advertising from the search
engine operators. Therefore, there are lack of resource to implement the use
of digital word-of-mouth and blog tools, in the owners/managers perspective,
digital word-of-mouth and blog tools are out of their range of the digital
marketing activities. According to interviewee 2, their staff are already very
busy with daily activities and are unable to maintain the website or even
answer some of the website enquiries in a timely manner. And according to
interviewees 1 and 5:

“Basically, we just hand it to the consultant to do it.”

“Digital marketing: I can say you need to spend a lot of time and effort to do a
proper digital marketing. Currently what we have is only one marketing
executive managing this and is a bit overwhelming.”

This shows that SMEs are either lacking resources or the expertise to
implement digital marketing strategies. Feedback from the interviewee is
about the cost and expertise of implementation. In addition, due to the fact that
this industry is very technical in nature, digital marketing has limitations in
assisting the business. According to interviewees 4 and 3:

“We need to follow up with offline activity such as visiting the customer, calling
the customer and meeting them to provide them with a solution, because no
offline, no order.”

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“In the industrial business, there are many technical issues we have to solve
in order to get the customer to order from us.”

It is common to have an offline follow-up activity, such as physically visiting

the customer to make sure the solution matches the customer’s manufacturing
or repair processes.

However, there was also feedback that digital marketing was not the strategy
that could assist the SMEs in their business. According to interviewees 2, 3, 4,
5 and 6:

“Over the years, we have been working with the customer and have a good
relationship in terms of working together.”

"This is also a problem because of the trust issue as we have not seen each
other before and maybe the customer will not trust us.”

“Because you will need to retain customers through personal relationship.”

“They will look at their own suppliers to provide them with the solution and
stuff.”

“If we have a certain relationship with our customer that we built over the years,
because of our good relationship with the customer, they would be more likely
to stick to us.”

Those are some of the responses from the interviewees that indicate that the
relationship with the customers is a very important factor. Having a good
relationship-based network strategy assists in customer acquisition and
retention for the SMEs.

In summary, a digital marketing strategy can assist the SMEs create

awareness and industrial presence, exposing their products and services in
the market and thereby creating good brand visibility and a good impression
on customers. However, there are also challenges. The lack of resources
available to create a good digital marketing strategy is the most common
problem. Another is the lack of expertise related to the implementation of a
digital marketing strategy. Other factors, such as the relationship-based
network, affect customer acquisition as customers might not want to change

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supplier if they have good relationship with their existing supplier. This makes
customer acquisition challenging if the company relies just on having a good
digital marketing strategy.

4.3.2.1. Digital marketing as an enabler of competitive advantages

This section relates to RO2, to investigate the extent to which industrial

supplies SMEs benefitted by using digital marketing tools as a strategic tool.
How digital marketing could enable SMEs to gain competitive advantages will
also be investigated.

The main digital marketing tools that were used were websites, search engine
marketing and emails. These tools are mainly used to create awareness and
using digital communication to enhance communication and building
relationship between suppliers and customers. Digital marketing has enabled
customer acquisition for the industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore as the
website and search engine marketing tools have created more opportunity for
their products and services to be found. Interviewee 2 shared:

Our website is like an advertisement or more like an awareness for our

shop that many people can view freely. Because look at our shop here,
even if you were to drive pass the road outside, you might not even
notice that there is a shop here. The online presence allows us to tell
people that we supply our products here.

In addition, according to interviewees 3, 4, 5 and 6, digital marketing allows

their products and services to be noticed. Customers are able to know them
and channel their customer enquiries, hence enabling better customer
acquisition. In addition, awareness that was created by using digital marketing
tools also helps build brand visibility. Interviewees 1, 2 and 6 shared that their
websites are always in the top few search result on the first page of the search
engines. This has helped their brand visibility and has a very positive effect on
their brand. Interviewee 6 shared:

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“Continue to appear many times in front of our customers more than our
competitors and they would more likely try to enquire from us.”

As their brands are always visible, everywhere, whenever customers have an

enquiry, the customer would think of them first. This is similar to the experience
of interviewee 5. His company has posted many product case studies and
customers who encounter similar issues to those profiled in the case studies
would notice them very quickly due to their brand visibility.

As digital marketing is on the internet and, therefore has no geographic

limitations, digital marketing has replaced some of their traditional marketing
activities according to interviewee 3. These include participating in exhibitions.
The cost of exhibitions is high and normally the audience would only be from
the country where the exhibition is being hosted or perhaps the countries
around the hosting country. This contrasts with the use of digital marketing
tools: they can create much more awareness and brand visibility compared to
exhibitions at a much lower cost.

According to interviewee 4, using digital marketing tools has brought them

sales enquiries from across the world and it has greatly helped them in terms
of communicating with overseas customers. However, overseas customers
are generally harder to acquire as there is no personal contact. The complex
technical requirements of customers make suggesting a suitable product and
properly servicing the customer and their requirements challenging for the
SMEs.

Using digital marketing with existing customers has a positive effective

according to interviewees 1, 4 and 6. Customers would look for solutions only
when they encounter some issue or have a new technical requirement. Having
a website and good brand visibility would help direct the customer to the
website. They are able to get their solution faster, thus enhancing
communication and interaction with the customers could build better customer
relationship to achieve customer loyalty.

Interviewee 5 shared that using email marketing with existing customers could
enhance the communication when a customer might not be aware of the full

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range of products and services they offer. Enhanced communication would
help them promote more products and services to the customer:

“Email mass blast to the customers: surprisingly the rates that came back are
actually quite high because a lot of customers like what we mentioned earlier.
They do not know we do rental and equipment sales for industrial.”

This shows that although a customer may actively go to the supplier website
to check for product and services, frequent active communication with the
customer could improve the customer relationship.

That said, the main factors for obtaining customer loyalty according to
interviewees 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 are non-digital marketing factors such as good
customer service, better pricing, supplying better quality products and having
a good relationship. The relationship is important because customers would
normally have established their own group of suppliers that they have
relationships with and they would not look for new suppliers unless their
existing supplier is unable to fulfil their requirements. Digital marketing could
only assist with better and easier communication to build customer relationship;
the SMEs would need to be physically present to build a relationship with a
potential new customer in order to build a RBN with them and service them to
achieve customer loyalty.

Interviewee 3 specifically stated that:

Many people also slowly start using the internet to look for things to buy
and we have to follow up with the trend so we will not be left behind.

Customers normally prefer to work with suppliers they know as they

have worked together before and have proven success. Customers do
not go online to search for unknown suppliers unless their current
supplier lists are not able to provide them with a solution.

This statement stresses the importance of the RBN that could help the SMEs
obtain a competitive advantage. Although digital marketing has changed the
way customers look for products and services, they are still very reliant on
RBNs to finding products and services.

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When asked about the impact of good sales revenues on creating competitive
advantage, none of the participants was very sure if they would have any
impact. All the participants acknowledged that increasing sales revenue would
mean additional resources for them to expand their capabilities. For example,
they would expect to have a higher budget for paid advertising on search
engine marketing tools or the capacity to hire another digital marketing
specialist to help them build their digital marketing tools.

However, the participants also perceived some disadvantages of using digital

marketing. Those highlighted by the participants included a lack of people with
relevant expertise and a lack of resources to maintain the website or start a
blog to gather digital W-O-M. Furthermore, they believed that the customer
would prefer suppliers to be physically present to solve problems and they
believed that doing so could also build a better relationship with the customer.
There are also non-digital marketing factors such as pricing and the quality of
the industrial supplies which was believe to be a huge factor affecting their
competitive advantages. Thus, many of the industrial supplies SMEs in
Singapore would consider not building digital marketing capabilities given
these considerations.

4.3.2.2. Overview of Digital marketing and strategic benefits (RO2)

In summary, Table 14 shows how digital marketing is an enabler for SMEs in

relation to different variables according to the framework, and how SMEs could
use digital marketing tools to acquire new customers as a consequence of the
brand visibility that digital marketing tools deliver. By using digital marketing
tools, SMEs are able to enhance communication and start to build
relationships that are subsequently developed through RBNs. This helps
SMEs to increase customer satisfaction and, therefore, increase sales
revenue, which, in turn, provides the budget to further build their capabilities
to obtain competitive advantages.

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Table 14

Summary of the findings for RO2: To investigate the extent that industrial supplies SMEs benefitted by
using digital marketing tools as a strategic tool

Key Findings
Pros
Website: Customer could
enquire about items directly
from our website
Website: Online presence
creates awareness.
SEM: Being top in search
engines gives customers’
confidence.
Website: Have no
geographic limitations,
available 24/7.
DM tools: Simplify
communicating with
overseas customers.
Website: Available 24/7;
allows customer to look for
solution anytime.
Email: Increase and enhance
communication.
DM tools: Increase sales
revenue helps expand
capabilities
Note. Table created by Author to summarise the finding for Research Objective 2 from the owner-
managers’ perspective.
Variables
Cons
Website: Need actual person with
technical knowledge to advice
customers on the correct industrial Customer
supplies. Acquisition
Digital W-O-M / Blog: need extra
resource to generate content.
Website: Lack of resources to maintain
website.
Brand
Website: Lack of people with expertise.
visibility
SEM: High cost of paid advertisement
to the search engines operators.
Website: No personal contact.
DM tools: Unable to physically look at
the problem and suggest correct Going
solutions. Global
Website: Customer wants to see them
personally face to face to solve the
Customer
technical issue.
Satisfactions
DM tools: Customers look for better
pricing, quality and customer service.
Sales
Revenue

However, the challenges of using digital marketing tools, such as a lack of

resources and capabilities to implement digital marketing is a constraint for
some of the industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore. This is in addition to the
owners/managers’ perspective that they should continue to be physically
present to meet customers. Most of the owner-managers of the industrial
supplies SMEs in Singapore are in favour of using digital marketing tools to
build their capabilities and develop competitive advantages.

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4.3.3. Effectiveness of digital marketing tools (RO3)

The investigation relating to RO3 – the effectiveness of digital marketing tools

for customer acquisition and customer retention – focused mainly on websites,
search engine marketing and email marketing.

According to interviewee 1, having an online presence has significantly

increased customer acquisition capabilities. Having their brand visible in an
online search using a search engine, which many customers are using to look
for new products and services, “opens the door” for the supplier to the
customer. Instead of using traditional sales activities such as cold calling and
a door-to-door approach to acquire new customers, digital marketing tools are
“able to link us to the customers”, establishing a connection between the
supplier and the customers. In addition, existing customers that have new
requirements can get answers from the digital marketing tools the instant they
need them. This would also enhance customer satisfaction.

Interviewee 2 also shared that digital marketing tools have become part of their
business strategy for customer acquisition. They create an online presence,
which results in a significant increase in new customer enquiries that usually
convert into a sale. He said:

“New customers are repeatedly coming onto our website, sending enquiries to
our email. Most of the customers I could say are a straight sales conversion
because the products we sell are like you need it.”

Because of the nature of industrial supplies, customers only start looking for
products when they need them. Having good brand visibility could help
generate more sales. With regards to customer retention, although digital
marketing tools could enhance communication, interviewee 2 believed that the
best strategy for improving customer retention was using non-digital marketing
methods, such as better pricing, quality, lead times and service. There was
also a concern that customers are unable to cope with digital marketing tools
as some of their employees are not familiar with them. This situation would
result in drop in the standard of service.

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According to interviewee 4, although digital marketing tools are effective in
generating more customer enquiries, there is more to be done. Rather than
being a direct sale, an enquiry only serves as a link between the supplier and
the customer. It must be followed up with other sales activity. He said:

“We need to follow up with offline activity such as visiting the customer, calling
the customer and meeting them to provide them with solutions, because no
offline, no order.”

As industrial supplies are technical in nature, a customer’s requirements might

not be straightforward. Hence, offline visiting to the customer site is needed in
order to solve their issue and acquire them as a customer. In using digital
marketing tools for customer retention, interviewee 4 said:

“They go to our website, they see what they want to buy and then they call me
and I will advise them of our solution and how to use it.”

However, interviewee 4 also shared that digital marketing tools are not very
effective as the customer focus is on the bottom line. Digital marketing is
heavily reliant on the customer knowing their requirements. Some customers
who have requirements would call them directly instead of using a digital
marketing tool to communicate with them.

Overall, interviewee 4 felt that digital marketing was not very important in
customer acquisition and retention, although digital marketing is “good to
have”. He said:

I think that using networks and relationships makes it easier to get more
sales because I think it’s more natural if you have a problem to solve,
you call your friend, your supplier, somebody that you know to help. So,
this point is super important: you must be already there in his contact
list. If not. it will be hard.

This quote from interviewee 4 shows that RBNs are still a very important factor
in the current environment. Digital marketing is just an additional tool to
support them in customer acquisition and retention.

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Interviewee 6 shared that digital marketing helps them other than in generating
leads: it also helps with increasing the probability of customer acquisition.
Communication is easier using digital marketing tools; appearing on the top
page of a search engine search helps their brand to be visible to more
customers, which not only increases their leads, it also helps by building their
reputation within the industry:

I think this more or less will let customer have a good impression. For
example, you walk on the street. You see McDonalds always appearing
in your brain. When you are hungry, you will also think of McDonalds.

Having good brand visibility not only helps in generating leads but also helps
enhance the brand image and the company’s reputation within the industry.
This would allow the supplier to engage with customers more advantageously
due to their reputation and increase customer acquisition. However, for
customer retention, better service, pricing and relationships are more
important factors rather than having good digital marketing tools.
Communication can improve using digital marketing tools, and thereby
contribute to offering better service. The most important factor in customer
retention is having good pricing and having a relationship with the customer:

“If we have a certain relationship with our customer that we built over the years,
because of our good relationship with the customer, they would more likely to
stick to us.”

This shows that in terms of customer retention, building a good relationship is

very important for SMEs to focus on. By having good service, pricing,
communication and branding, the SMEs could build their RBNs faster and
better using digital marketing tools to assist them.

Interviewee 5 supports the idea of using digital marketing tools for customer
acquisition and retention as digital marketing enables them to generate more
leads. The leads that digital marketing generate have an acquisition success
rate of around 50% greater than their expectations:

So far our digital marketing effort is still insufficient and we still need to
put in more time and effort to actually focus on the digital marketing.

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 Currently the success rate of 50% to us is very good as we expected
the conversion rate to be only 20%. Twenty per cent from those leads
is already considered a good number and to get 50% is actually – we
are quite satisfied, because the lead generation from this is still very
low, so we are actually wanting to boost our leads from this portion.

As the SMEs don’t have many resources to allocate to digital market efforts,
they feel that their effort is still insufficient but the results exceed their
expectations. However, they feel that in terms of business-to-business
relationships, digital marketing is more helpful for customer retention (as it
helps them to engage with existing customers) rather than the acquisition of
new customers.

“Because a lot of customers for example company to company, they actually

had their own pools of suppliers etc ...”

“Mostly they will look at their own suppliers to provide them with the solution
and stuff.”

This shows that having an RBN is very important for both customer acquisition
and customer retention, and that the SMEs shouldn’t rely just on using digital
marketing tools.

This was further reinforced by interviewee 3, who said that he believed that a
human touch is best for building relationship-based network:

We cannot increase our sales because in the internet world, you don’t
know me, I don’t know you.

This is also a problem because of trust issues: as we have not seen

each other before, maybe the customer will not trust us. They pay a
deposit for the orders and we also will not trust the customer to pay up
after they receive our goods.

Customers normally prefer to work with suppliers they know as they

have worked together before and have a proven success.

This indicates that people do not trust the internet if they have not met each
other before. So, although digital marketing is starting to assist SMEs with

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customer acquisition and retention, there are limitations. By using relationship-
based networks, greater trust can be built and this increases customer
acquisition and retention.

4.3.3.1. Overview of effectiveness of digital marketing tools (RO3)

In summary, Table 15 shows that digital marketing helps customer acquisition

by creating higher brand visibility, which provides a linkage between the
suppliers and the customers. Moreover, using RBNs could increase trust and
improve customer acquisition further in order to complete the customer
acquisition process, this can be assisted using digital marketing tools.

Table 15

Summary of RO3: The effectiveness of digital marketing tools in customer acquisition and customer
retention

Customer Acquisition
Effective Ineffective
Enable higher brand visibility, Technical requirement needs to be
increase traffic flow and enquiry solved physically after looking at
rates. the process in the factory.

Being at the top of search engines Physical follow-up needed to gain

helps build branding and improve trust with the customers.
enquiry rates.

Website could help to convert Customers would prefer to

enquiries to make sales easier.
Customer Retention
Improve customer interaction for
better customer service.
Improve customer loyalty through
using better communication
Using digital marketing tools to
build relationship
approach suppliers they are
familiar with and have a
relationship with.
Using non-digital (traditional)
means; having the better pricing.
Using non-digital (traditional)
means; providing better quality
products and customer service.

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Note. Table created by Author to summarise the findings for research objectives 3 from the owner-
managers’ perspective.

Although using digital marketing tools helps enhance communication, deepen

relationships, provide better service for the customer, resulting in higher
customer satisfaction and leading to better customer retention, there are some
factors that digital marketing doesn’t address. These include pricing and the
quality of the industrial supplies they offer.

4.4. Customer perspectives

In this section, the data collected from customers will be discussed and
analysed in alignment with the three research objectives.

4.4.1. Prominent digital marketing tools used (RO1)

In this section, the prominent digital marketing tools used by the industrial
supplies SMEs in Singapore are considered in two sub-sections covering
customer acquisition and customer retention from the customer perspective.

4.4.1.1. Digital marketing tools used for new suppliers

The prominent digital marketing tools used by customers to find new suppliers
are websites and search engines. However, according to interviewee 8,9,10
as the customers, they prefer to deal with suppliers that they already have
relationships with. Below (Table 16) is the summary of the responses from all
the customers’ perspective.

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Table 16

Summary of prominent digital marketing tool used by customers buying industrial supplies from new
suppliers in Singapore.

Interviewee Website Email Search Directory WOM / Others

# Engines / Social Blog (Non-DM
Media tools)
7 X X X

8 X X X

9 X X X

10 X X X

Total 4 0 4 1 0 3

Note. Table created by Author to record the digital marketing tools that were used by the customers for
new supplier acquisition.

The data collected from the customers indicated that most customers were
using a search engine (particularly Google) to find products and services when
they need to look for a new supplier. After they found potential suppliers, they
go to the supplier’s website to look at the products and services offered.
Customers also prefer to look to their current suppliers that they have
relationships with and are more likely to engage them directly using a phone
call, email or check their website to look for the products and services they
require.

According to all interviewee, customer’s typical process when they are looking
for new products and services is to first check their current supplier list –
suppliers that they already have a relationship with. If their current list doesn’t
have a suitable supplier, they then continue searching for alternative suppliers
using Google. They would normally check the first few results that Google has
given them and then check for appropriate products on the new supplier’s
website and initiate contact with them.

According to all interviewee the ideal website should have sufficiently detailed
product and service information to enable them to make a decision. It would

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be even better if all other information such as pricing, lead time, technical
specification, and all other information related to the products and services are
available. Customers are usually busy and when looking for a new supplier,
they want the job to be done as quickly as possible.

4.4.1.2. Digital marketing tools used for existing suppliers

The prominent digital marketing tool used by the customers is visiting the
supplier’s website. However, the factors affecting customer retention do not
only focus on digital marketing capabilities of the suppliers. Below (Table 17)
is the summary of the responses from the perspective of all the customers.

Table 17

Summary of prominent digital marketing tools used by the customer buying industrial supplies from
existing suppliers in Singapore.

Interviewee Website Email Search Directory WOM / Others

# Engines / Social Blog (Non-DM
Media tools)
7 X X
8 X X
9 X X
10 X X
Total 4 0 0 0 0 4

Note. Table created by Author to record the digital marketing tools that were used by the customers for
retention of existing suppliers.

The data collected from the customers’ perspective shows that in regards to
the factors they would consider to continue buying from their existing supplier
are non-digital marketing tools related such as pricing, supply chain and the
lead-time for the industrial supplies. These are the main considerations for the
customer. The website is something that, according to interviewee 8 & 10,
provides a better understanding of the product:

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 I would like to think that the marketing for online stuff is for me to make
the connection to have some understanding of the supplier.

We would normally go to their website and take a look at their product

or call them directly or email them directly.

However, according to interviewee 8, they would not prefer to look at the

supplier’s website even when they need to find some information:

“If I’ve got time, I might go to the supplier website to find things.”

According to interviewee 7 & 10, they usually looks at other factors, such as
pricing, quality, and the supplier’s lead times to determine if they want to
continue ordering:

Digital marketing has no part to play in how we select suppliers because,

at the end of the day, different corporations have different objectives.
Happen so that my objective here is costing. So we go for the lowest
cost.

I think the most important part in retaining me is the pricing and also the
lead time and quality of product. No point having a supplier that has
very good marketing but supply product that is of lousy quality.

Interviewee 8 also shared that they have a preference for suppliers that they
have a relationship with as they have known each other for a period of time:

“We have very good relationship along the years. They know us, we know
them. We support each other.”

These responses show that pricing is the main concern of customers, followed
by the level of support that existing suppliers are able to provide. Digital
marketing tools such as websites are widely used to assist with communication
to improve customer support levels. However, RBNs also play a role in
customer retention, as customers are more willing to work with suppliers they
know and have a relationship with already.

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4.4.2. Digital Marketing Tools and Strategic Benefits (RO2)

The data collected shows that the prominent digital marketing tools that were
used by the customers to search for new suppliers are websites and search
engines are used to enhance the online presence of the suppliers. The
prominent digital marketing tool that was used by customers for existing
suppliers is the supplier’s website as the website could help the customers to
understand the supplier better and could also enhance their interaction. When
searching for a new supplier, customers always keep in mind their RBN and
look for a supplier within their network before going to the open market.
However, according to interviewee 7, customers will only continue to buy from
their existing supplier if the non-digital marketing factor such as pricing and the
level of support is good enough.

Customers have objectives that they need to fulfil as a purchaser of industrial

supplies. Because the products they purchase are used for manufacturing,
repair and overhaul, the technical specification of the industrial supplies must
match the requirements of their manufacturing or repair and overhaul
processes. The data collected from the interviewee 8 shows that non-digital
marketing factors such as the quality of the industrial supplies is taken into as
a big consideration:

If I need some low grade item, like sharpening stone, any brand will do.
Even a Chinese brand I can accept. But if you’re talking about precision
drill bits, I cannot anyway accept those lousy brands because if the tool
has a problem, even a small problem, my product goes to scrap. If big
problem, sometimes my worker gets injured and I need to pay for their
hospital bills and they can’t work.

As the manufacturing, repair and overhaul requirements vary from scenario to

scenario, the complexity of the process is a factor. That is, although quality is
deemed to be a non-digital marketing requirement when purchasing industrial
supplies, different technical requirement scenarios mean different results. The
supplier’s level of customer support is also important as manufacturers require
industrial supplies to be consistent and they cannot afford to have disruptions

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to the supply chain. Customers require close support on the supply chain.
When suppliers use digital marketing to enhance communication, customers
are able to check the details of the industrial supplies instantly, and at any time
in the day, this would help in building better customer relationship. Digital
marketing tools are able to provide information in the quickest possible way
according to interviewee 9:

I think the main advantage is that it allows one to make the connection
quickly and, of course, to quickly identify if there are any opportunities.
If we were to email you or have to call you, usually there is a delay in
the response. One thing is that with email, a supplier might take time to
reply. If we call, we can’t always reach, or we need to call at a good
time. Then we can’t make a fast decision on whether to proceed further.

The data collected from customers indicate that suppliers need to update their
website and provide accurate information for the customer to refer to. If the
website has adequate information for the customers, it greatly assists
customers to make fast decisions. This, in turn, makes the supplier more
appealing to the customer and is effective customer acquisition for the supplier.

Customers also prefer to purchase from a supplier that they already know and
have a relationship with. As interviewee 10 shared: “It’s easier to buy from an
existing supplier.” Interviewee 10 further explained that there are many
concerns about finding new unknown suppliers because they have not worked
with them before and they don’t have a relationship. Working with a supplier
that the customer knows enhances the synergy: “They know us, we know them.
We support each other.” This shows that when there is a relationship-based
network, both supplier and customer are more willing to go the extra mile to
help each other, ensuring the best outcome for both parties.

4.4.2.1. Digital marketing as enabler in competitive advantages

Digital marketing tools can also build competitive advantage in the eyes of the
customer, as discussed. When a supplier has a website, the customer is able

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to go to it for more information about the product they need as the website
helps to build online presence. Therefore, a supplier website that has enough
information about the products and services appeals to the customer.
Interviewee 7 said:

I have come across a supplier that has all the information that I need in
their website. Because at times, I would even use it for product
information, my own knowledge, or just extracting information I need
from the website and even before I call this supplier.

All customer interviewees said that they would personally prefer websites that
are able to provide information that would be enough for them to understand
the products. This might include technical specifications and pricing among
other information that they need to make a purchase decision as quickly as
possible. This is appealing to customers as they are generally busy with their
daily tasks and would hope to be able find the product they need as quickly as
possible, this means that website acts as a digital communication tools to
enhance communication. However, according to interviewee 9, although a
great deal of information on the website is appreciated, the website should be
easy to use: the information need to be presented in a neat and tidy manner,
and the user should be able to navigate easily to get what they want.

The credibility of the supplier’s brand of products and services is heightened if

the brand is widely seen or always appears in the top of search engine results.
Interviewees 7, 8, 9 and 10 said:

For supplier wise, if they are in the top if the search engine, it would
show that they are genuine and probably been around for quite some
time.

In the internet, I think if Google can come out in the top, they should be
good. If not, how will they be at the top?

I mean, let’s say for example, 3M. You see 3M all over your life you
know. Use it at home, use it at work, even in the coffee shop, so it’s
everywhere and they have very strong marketing. Online, likewise, a lot
of people would do advertising there. So I guess when you see a brand

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 and somehow have a good impression of it because you understand
them better, where they are in your life, both your work life and personal
life. The thing is that it adds maybe a bit of a legitimacy to your product
or your brand that you know. You do have an official presence, wide
presence compared to someone who doesn’t even have a website.

I think if we keep seeing the supplier or brand everywhere we go, by

right they should be good. If not, why would their brand always appear?

The common response from the customers is that online presence such as the
website of the supplier appearing at the top of the search engine results greatly
improves brand credibility. Customers perceive top ranking in a search engine
search to mean lend legitimacy to the products. And when the branding is
always in front of the customer, according to interviewee 9, the customer will
have a better impression of the brand. They feel that they understand it better
and they perceive the brand as a credible brand.

In the digital world, geographic limitations are no longer a big issue. Because
the customer has many requirements of the industrial supplies due to their
technical specification, some industrial supplies are difficult to find locally,
according to interviewee 7. The customer can take advantage of suppliers
from around the world to help them fulfil their requirements. Interviewee 8, who
is based in Malaysia, said:

“Countries like Singapore, USA, Europe and Japan – I think I can buy more in
peace because I know they have good quality.”

Digital marketing tools helps customers to find reliable suppliers internationally.

It also helps suppliers to go global. Customers are able to find suppliers more
quickly and easily, and this benefits both the supplier and the customer.
According to interviewees 7, 8 and 10, they are able to use digital marketing
tools to get quotations from supplier all around the world. If the pricing matches
their requirements, they may even be able to achieve some cost reduction:
they would normally use a quotation from one supplier to negotiate with
another supplier to get a better price.

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Apart from helping customers to find suppliers, digital marketing tools also help
to build customer loyal and improve customer retention. They help enhance
the communication between the supplier and the customers. For example,
using a website helps customers to search for their required products and
services faster when their existing supplier’s website has information ready for
the customer. This improves the supplier’s customer support level, which, in
turn, improves customer satisfaction. Interviewees 8 and 10, for example, said
that they do go to the website to check for information for some products and
are happy if they are able to find it quickly.

However, the factors that are more important in affecting customer retention
are non-digital marketing, such as support, pricing, quality and having a
relationship-based network. Digital marketing tools can help to improve
support by enhancing communication between the parties and helping to build
the relationship-based network. The other factors – pricing and the quality of
the product offered – are unable to be assisted by digital marketing tools.

Apart from just focusing on pricing separately, customers consider the holistic
advantage of the product. According to interviewees 8 and 10, they are not
only looking at pricing alone when selecting suppliers; they also look at factors
such as lead time, delivery and support. Although they have to work to a
budget, they generally have no problem finding products that meet their lead
time, delivery, support and pricing requirements that are within their budget.
This shows that customers do not look at pricing alone: they take a holistic
view of the performance of the supplier. In other words, they need to feel the
product they are purchasing is value for money.

4.4.2.2. Overview of Digital marketing and strategic benefits (RO2)

In summary, digital marketing tools are able to assist the customer to find
suitable suppliers as summarised below (table 18) and the industrial supplies
SMEs in Singapore could benefit from understanding the customer
perspective to gain strategic benefits.

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Table 18

Summary of the findings for RO2: To investigate the extent that industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore
benefitted by using digital marketing tools – from the customer perspective.

Key Sharing
Variables
Pros Cons
Website: Able to help make Website: Rather work with
connections with the current supplier because of
supplier quickly. relationships and their
Product and Services
Website: Technical solution has proven
appeal
information available on the workable before.
website helps with fast
decision making.
SEM: Appearing in the top
results of the search
engines search shows
better product and
services. Brand Credibility
SEM: Appearing at the top
of search engine search
results means brand is
widely recognised.
Website: Has no
geographically limitations.
DM tools: Able to
International Appeal
benchmark pricing globally
and open up better
sourcing.
Website: Available 24/7 Supplier evaluation:
allows viewing and Pricing, quality, customer
answering some questions support and supplier- Customer Loyalty/
at any time. customer relationship are Retention
Email: Increase and non-digital marketing
enhance communication. related.
DM tools: Able to Products are being
benchmark pricing and evaluated by the pricing,
open up better sourcing for quality and supply chain of
Value for Money
better quality, cheaper the suppliers and are not
pricing or better supply affected by digital
chain. marketing tools.
Note. Table created by Author to summarise the finding for Research Objective 2 from the customer
perspective.

Having a supplier’s website that display much of the information the customers
need and they are able to make a decision faster when they need to, thus
improving product and services appeal. SEM tools also help to enhance
credibility as appearing in the top results of search engine search gives
customers peace of mind to engage with the supplier. In addition, websites
have no geographic limitations and help customers search for a wider range
of suppliers globally. This may enable them to make better choices and

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improve their search for a better supplier. Digital marketing tools also help in
enhancing communication, and thus, in improving customer service and
support. This, in turn, helps to build better relationships that create and
maintain relationship-based networks and ultimately improve customer loyalty.
However, customers’ decisions about purchasing from new suppliers are still
heavily affected by pricing, quality, customer support and relationship-based
networks, which are not directly affected by digital marketing.

4.4.3. Effectiveness of digital marketing tools (RO3)

The investigation into the effectiveness of the digital marketing tools used by
the customer shows that when finding new suppliers, the most commonly used
digital marketing tool is a search engine. Using the results of a search engine
search, the customer is able to go to the website of the supplier to obtain more
information on the products and services they are looking for. Normally
customers would only go into the search results of their enquiry ranked among
the first few. This also proves that the top few results of a search engine search
would normally have created an impression of good brand credibility.
According to interviewees 7, 8 and 10, being ranked at the top of the search
engine search results would make a supplier look more credible:

“It would show that they are genuine and probably been around for quite some time.”

“In the internet, I think if Google can come out in the top, they should be good.
If not, how will they be at the top?”

“They should be good. If not, why would their brand always appear?”

This shows that from the customer’s perspective, the top results that appear
in a search engine search would normally be considered to be the more
credible suppliers. In addition, appearing in a search engine search and having
a website would make the supplier known to the customers, as customers
have no way to know that the supplier existed unless they could find them.
Interviewee 7 said:

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 I think I shared this portion earlier that I think digital presence today is
very very important because right from the start my approach is that
when I have a sourcing request, the first thing I would do is Google.
Suppliers with zero digital presence might have the best pricing, but I
don’t know because they are not on Google or other digital means.
Even if the supplier that has a digital presence actually buys from the
one that doesn’t and sells it to me, I won’t know. And I will still buy from
the supplier that has the digital means as they give me the information
I need.

This statement shared by a customer shows that because most customers are
using digital means to look for suppliers, as this is fastest for them, suppliers
should have some form of digital presence. It would be best to have some
proper digital marketing tools that allow their products and services to be
known to customers.

The other advantage of website marketing tools for both finding new suppliers
and for interacting with existing suppliers is that the website is always available.
Customers are able to find important information whenever they need it.
Interviewee 9 said:

I think the main advantage is that it allows one to make the connection
quickly and, of course, to quickly identify if there are any opportunities.
If we were to email you or have to call you usually there is a delay in
the response. One thing is that with email, a supplier might take time to
reply. If we call, we can’t always reach them, or need to call at a good
time. Then we can’t make a fast decision on whether to proceed further.

When the customer is able to access information any time they need it, they
are able to make decisions in a timely manner. This enhances customer
acquisition for the supplier. It also improves communication between the
customer and existing suppliers, increasing customer satisfaction and, hence,
improving the relationship with the customer, leading to enhanced customer
retention.

All the interviewees disclosed that in order to have effective customer retention,
they hoped that suppliers would be able to provide good pricing, offer good

110
support to them and also maintain a good relationship with them. Having a
website helps increase customer support. However, digital marketing tools
would not be able to assist with other factors such as the pricing of their
products and services.

Table 19

Summary of RO3: The effectiveness of digital marketing tools in customer acquisition and customer
retention from the customers’ perspective.

Looking for new suppliers

Effective Ineffective
Using the internet to search for new Would prefer to approach existing
suppliers whenever there is a suppliers who are familiar and with
requirement that existing suppliers whom they have a good
do not meet. relationship.
Having a website enables suppliers Decisions about using new
to be found easily and make known suppliers depend on price, quality
to everyone that they exist. and service.

Searching for the top suppliers in

the search engine search helps
filter the supplier quality.

Having a website that has

appropriate information enables
quick decisions about using the
suppliers.
Retaining existing suppliers
Creates interaction to improve Decisions about retention of
supplier-customer interaction and existing suppliers depend on non-
supplier-customer loyalty. digital marketing factors such as
price, quality products and
services.
Having a website that has The supplier-customer relationship
appropriate information helps built offline is important.
answer any possible enquiry
quickly, improving supplier-
customer interaction / loyalty.
Ultimately improving customer
retention

Note. Table created by Author to summarise the finding for Research Objective 3 from the customer
perspective.

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Table 19 shows that although customers would always prefer to approach
existing suppliers that they have a good relationship with, they would use the
internet whenever they needed to find new suppliers. Having a website helps
the supplier to be found by the customer easily. Having adequate information
on the website also assists customers to make quick decision about the appeal
of the products and services. In addition, being at the top of the results of a
search engine search could improve brand credibility and, in turn, improve the
chances of a customer reaching out to the supplier. With regards to retaining
suppliers, digital marketing helps in creating better communication and better
customer service to build customer loyalty and retention, although pricing and
quality are other factors the customer considers when deciding to retain a
supplier. Using digital marketing tools can assist in building better customer
service and communication to achieve a better supplier-customer relationship,
thus creating an RBN.

4.5. Chapter summary

In summary, this chapter has uncovered that the prominent digital marketing
tools used by owners/managers for customer acquisition are websites and
SEM, and for customer retention, websites and non-digital marketing tools
such as pricing, quality products and services.

The digital marketing practices that affect company strategy and build
competitive advantages include using digital marketing tools to increase
awareness through online presence, improve communication with customers,
and increase brand visibility and credibility. This would help the industrial
supplies SMEs in Singapore to go global and expand internationally,
increasing the appeal of their products and services. This would assist the
industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore in helping to increase customer
acquisition for potential customer as well as increase customer retention
through increasing customer interaction and building customer relationship
and loyalty.

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However, digital marketing can only assist the industrial supplies SMEs in
Singapore to a certain extent. Factors such as pricing and quality of the
products supplied are important factors for customer acquisition and retention.
There was no evidence to indicate that using digital marketing tools influenced
these factors. In addition, industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore lack the
resources to build digital marketing capabilities and preferred physical face-to-
face meetings with customers in order to provide technical solutions and build
a relationship with the customer.

The interviews with customers showed that the prominent digital marketing
tools used for finding new suppliers were websites and search engines.
Visiting a website enables customers to make a connection with a new supplier
quickly. If there is technical information on the website, customers are able to
make decisions quickly. Search engines are used to identify good suppliers,
as they filter the supplier websites and rank them. However, customers still
prefer to work with suppliers that have an RBN with and they also take pricing,
quality and services of the supplier into account in their decision – factors that
are not directly affected by digital marketing tools.

Overall, digital marketing tools are important to both the industrial supplies
SMEs in Singapore and their customers, as they act as a link to connect new
suppliers and potential customers and help improve communication between
existing suppliers and customers.

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CHAPTER FIVE: DISCUSSION

5.1. Introduction

In this chapter, the findings from the data are discussed. The chapter is
structured to discuss the findings for each of the three research objectives
separately. This is followed by a chapter summary that appraises the
discussion holistically.

5.2. Prominent digital marketing tools (RO1)

In this section, the prominent digital marketing tools used by the industrial
supplies SMEs in Singapore are considered with regard to customer
acquisition and then customer retention.

5.2.1. Prominent digital marketing tools for customer acquisition

The results of combining input from both the owners/managers’ perspective

and the customers’ perspective concerning customer acquisition, are
summarised in Table 20.

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Table 20

Combination of owners/managers’ perspective and customers’ perspective with regards to the prominent
digital marketing tools used for customer acquisition.

Interviewee Website SEM Directory Email W-O-M/ Non-digital Roles

# (Google) / Social Blog (traditional)
Media

1 X X Owners/
Manager
2 X X Owners/
Manager
3 X X X Owners/
Manager
4 X X Owners/
Manager
5 X X X Owners/
Manager
6 X X X Owners/
Manager
7 X X X Customer
8 X X X Customer
9 X X X Customer
10 X X X Customer
Total 10 10 4 0 0 3

Note. Table created by Author to combine the summary for both the owner-managers’ perspective and
the customers’ perspective for prominent digital marketing tools used for customer acquisition (RO1).

The result from both the owners/manager and customer perspectives is that
the prominent digital marketing tools used by industrial supplies SMEs in
Singapore are website marketing and search engine marketing (SEM). These
two tools work hand-in-hand in helping the industrial supplies SMEs to become
noticed by customers and converting potential customers to customers.
Similarly, from the customer perspective, customers mainly used search
engines to find supplier websites when they have a requirement to purchase
industrial supplies that their current suppliers do not sell.

According to Leung and Mo (2019), search engines are commonly used by

companies to direct customers to their website. On their website there is

115
information to help customers obtain the information they need in the shortest
possible time (Rowley, 2008). In addition, search engines are not bound by
geographic limitations, so their use helps to create awareness both locally and
globally, this was supported according to the interview findings.

Website content is also an important factor in customer acquisition as the

website supposed to act as a linkage between the supplier and customers.
Basic product information and contact methods must be easily found if a
customer is to connect to the suppliers (Scheers, 2018; Veronica et al., 2018).

However, both the owner-managers and the customers said that the
customers would normally approach their current supplier first before
attempting to find new suppliers for the industrial supplies they needed. As
highlighted by Rocca (2020), relationships are important, especially in the
business to business (B2B) environment, so having a good RBN could help a
customer to identify suppliers that would be beneficial to them. Both the owner-
managers and the customers talked about RBNs and acknowledged that such
networks would be what they would use first when they have a new industrial
supplies requirement. However, if the item required is totally new and the
customer’s network does not include any suitable suppliers, the customer
would find suppliers using the search engines. They would normally go to the
website of the top few results by the search engine search. On the website,
they would look for the item they required and then send an enquiry from the
website or contact the supplier using the information found on the website

Although SEM tools are the commonly used to direct traffic into the website,
directory and social media are also used by some industrial supplies SMEs in
Singapore and their customers. Directory acts similar to SEM tools as
customer such as interviewee 7 would rely on directory to look for new
suppliers. The social media similarly could target certain demography
(Makrides et al., 2020) which makes the digital marketing tools much more
efficient with the limited amount of resource that can be used for digital
marketing (Ainin et al., 2015). However, due to the nature of the industrial
supplies, the data collected does not favour the use of social media for
customer acquisition as

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There are also literatures that states email marketing is the most useful of the
digital marketing tools (Charlesworth, 2018) and the cost of using email
marketing tools is low (Rosokhata et al., 2020). However, the data gathered
shows that it is not the case in Singapore. According to Turunen (2021),
customers may be unhappy about email marketing communications they
receive if they perceive that such emails do not add value to them. From the
data collected from the interview with both owners/managers and the
customers stated that they would not look at marketing email sent by an
unknown person and would normally classify the email as a spam mail and
this would end up disadvantaging the company (Merisavo & Raulas, 2004).

The use of digital word-of-mouth in the literature suggested its effectiveness

(Leung & Mo, 2019). However, it was not the case in Singapore as firstly,
according to the owners/managers, the resources needed to create content to
post in their website is too much and in the industrial supplies, technical
knowledge is needed in order to come out with appropriate content. Therefore,
there is a resource gap of implementing blog. In addition, Sharma et al. (2020)
suggested that digital word-of-mouth by customer who leave feedback after
their purchase could help supplier improve brand credibility. However,
according to the customers, they would not have time to go into surfing the
supplier’s website or leave any feedback, this shows the weakness of the
digital word-of-mouth tool in the context of the industrial supplies in Singapore.

Lastly, customers also pointed out that a bulk majority of their decision come
of engaging the suppliers and making a purchase from the suppliers comes
from a non-digital marketing aspect such as the industrial supplies is of the
best pricing they could find in the market, or has the best quality that they could
use, interviewee 8 & 10 also mentioned that the customer services and the
supply chain should also be aligned to their requirement. Similarly, Suherna
(2021) suggested that good customer services could help build customer
relationship to achieve customer loyalty. This could build a RBN structure
where can help to promote long-term cooperation (Varadarajan, 2020; Zhang
et al., 2021).

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5.2.2. Prominent digital marketing tools for customer retention

The results of combining input from both the owners/managers’ perspective

and the customers’ perspective concerning customer retention are
summarised in Table 21.

Table 21

Combination of the owners/managers perspective and the customer perspective with regards to
prominent digital marketing tools used for customer retention.

Directory / Non-digital
W-O-M /
Interviewee # Website SEM Social Email (traditional)
Blog
media
1 X X
2 X X
3 X
4 X X X
5 X X X
6 X X X
7 X X
8 X X
9 X X
10 X X
Total 8 0 0 4 0 10

Note. Table created by Author to combine the summary for both the owner-managers perspective and
the customer perspective for prominent digital marketing tools used for customer retention (RO1).

As shown in Table 21, website marketing is the prominent digital marketing

tool used mainly for customer retention. Most owners/managers has used
email marketing for customer retention, although the customers said that they
did not think email marketing tools had much impact on them as the customer
has no time to look into the email marketing content sent by the suppliers but
appreciate the email when they have new requirement for industrial supplies.
This helps to outreach to the customers effectively with the added benefit of
being able to engage the customers when needed (Turunen, 2021).

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Both the owners/managers and the customers see the website marketing tool
as useful in customer retention because it helps to improve the level of
customer service. Similarly, Nikunen et al. (2017) also stated that customer
value being able to go onto a supplier’s website and look for information
directly, enabling them to make fast decisions, enhancing their perception of
the supplier’s customer service. This shows that in the website marketing tool
that have adequate content helps owners/managers to improve customer
satisfaction and ultimately helps in customer retention.

However, there are non-digital marketing factors such as pricing, quality

products and services that plays a big part in customer retention, both
owners/managers and customers deem pricing of the industrial supplies as an
important factor of consideration apart from digital marketing tools. This is
further reinforced by Tu and Hsu (2013) that price, quality of products and
services are the main factor to retain customer. Therefore, customer retention
also rely heavily on non-digital marketing factors as in the customers
perspective, the products supplied must be of good quality and they should be
able to use the tool appropriately before considering to continue building
supplier-customer relationship.

According to all the customer interviewee website do not have geographic

limitations. This makes it easy for customers to look for new suppliers and to
benchmark prices globally (Constantinides, 2006) – creating a potential
problem for current suppliers. Therefore, customers will be influenced
positively towards their current supplier if that supplier’s website repeatedly
appears near the top in the results of the customer’s internet search. This may
be sufficient to cause a customer to continue with their current supplier – thus
customer retention is enhanced.

5.3. Digital marketing tools as the enabler for competitive advantage

(RO2)

Digital marketing tools have helped industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore to

have a greater digital presence and enabled them to display their products and

119
services, providing customers with more information. By using a combination
of SEM and website marketing, SEM is able to create a higher awareness level
and direct more traffic to the website (Makrides et al., 2020), where enquiries
from potential customers can be converted into sales for the company. This
occurs because customers commonly use search engines to find new
suppliers in order to improve pricing and quality and access better support
levels. In addition, customers may have new requirements that their current
suppliers cannot help them with. Customers are more comfortable buying from
existing suppliers, especially those with whom they have a relationship, having
worked with them before (Zhang et al., 2021). As they have had a successful
experience with the supplier or be aware of the supplier’s reputation (Yeh et
al., 2020). Thus, they are heavily reliant on their RBN to determine which
supplier they would approach when they have a new requirement or a new
target to achieve. However, according to Forkmann et. al. (2022), relationships
are not built overnight: they require time and opportunity for individual social
activities to occur. This shows that in order to build RBN, it is a long process
and requires many resources which the use of digital marketing tools could
enhance customer relationships (Ancillai et al., 2019).

Digital marketing tools used in customer retention only assist in improving

communication. From the customers’ perspective, support and service levels
are highly valued. Digital marketing tools could indirectly help to improve
customer relationships (Ancillai et al., 2019) and, in the long run, help to build
an RBN provided the supplier offers consistent support and service.

The findings show how the variables digital marketing capabilities could help
the industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore build sustainable competitive
advantages. The combined summary of the finding showing the pros and cons
of the digital marketing tools that could enable the capabilities (table 22) are
as follows.

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Table 22

Combined summary of the findings for RO2: To investigate the extent that industrial supplies SMEs
benefitted by using digital marketing tools as a strategic tool

Key Findings (Pros)

Variables
Owners/managers Customers
Website: Customer could Website: Able to help make
enquire about items directly connections with the supplier Customer
from our website quickly. Acquisition /
Website: Technical information Product and
available on the website helps with Services appeal
fast decision making.
Website: Online presence SEM: Appearing in the top results of
creates awareness. the search engines search shows
Brand visibility /
SEM: Being top in search better product and services.
Brand
engines gives customers’ SEM: Appearing at the top of
Credibility
confidence. search engine search results means
brand is widely recognised.
Website: Have no Website: Has no geographically
geographic limitations, limitations.
Going Global /
available 24/7. DM tools: Able to benchmark pricing
International
DM tools: Simplify globally and open up better
Appeal
communicating with sourcing.
overseas customers.
Website: Available 24/7; Website: Available 24/7 allows Customer
allows customer to look for viewing and answering some Satisfactions /
solution anytime. questions at any time. Customer
Email: Increase and enhance Email: Increase and enhance Loyalty/
communication. communication. Retention
DM tools: Increase sales DM tools: Able to benchmark pricing
revenue helps expand and open up better sourcing for Sales Revenue
capabilities better quality, cheaper pricing or / Value for
better supply chain. Money

Key Findings (Cons)

Variables
Pros Cons
Website: Need actual person Website: Rather work with current Customer
with technical knowledge to supplier because of relationships Acquisition /
advice customers on the and their solution has proven Product and
correct industrial supplies. workable before. Services appeal
Website: Lack of resources
to maintain website.
Website: Lack of people with
expertise.
Brand visibility /
SEM: High cost of paid
Brand Credibility
advertisement to the search
engines operators.

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 Website: No personal
contact.
Going Global /
DM tools: Unable to
International
physically look at the
Appeal
problem and suggest correct
solutions.
Website: Customer wants to Supplier evaluation: Pricing, quality,
see them personally face to customer support and supplier- Customer
face to solve the technical customer relationship are non- Satisfactions /
issue. digital marketing related. Customer
DM tools: Customers look for Loyalty/
better pricing, quality and Retention
customer service.
Products are being evaluated by the
pricing, quality and supply chain of
Sales Revenue /
the suppliers and are not affected
Value for Money
by digital marketing tools.

Note. Table created by Author to summarise the finding for Research Objective 2 from both the
owners/managers’ and customers perspective.

From the owner-manager perspective, using digital marketing tools helps with
customer acquisition; from the customers’ perspective, it increases the appeal
of products and services. The interviews conducted with the owners/managers
showed that using website marketing and SEM tools allowed the customer to
look at their product and services. Therefore, the customer could enquire
directly about the industrial supplies that they would need, as mentioned by
Fraccastoro et al. (2021), digital marketing tool can help to establish new
relationships between individuals and businesses, helps to improve customer
acquisition.

Similarly, from the customer perspective, customers are able to look at the
technical information provided by the industrial suppliers, which allows them
to make fast decisions about whether to purchase the product or not. If they
want to purchase the product, they are able to connect to the supplier in the
quickest and simplest way by inputting their information on the website.

According to Vieira et al. (2019), using website marketing and good SEM
techniques helps in customer acquisition as compared to using the traditional
method to acquire customers. This is because digital marketing tools help in
facilitating the customer decision-making process (Habibi et al., 2015) when

122
the information presented on the digital marketing tools is relevant to the
customer (Nuryakin, 2020), and the customer is able to gather information
quickly (Scheers, 2018). The customer is thus able to make a decision quickly,
and this improves the appeal of the products and services.

In this context, however, the owners/managers needs to make extra effort to

ensure that the website is up-to-date and the technical information about the
industrial supplies is accurate and neatly displayed. Customers want to find
information quickly and easily in order to make a fast decision. The
owners/manager that inputs information to the website needs to have the
appropriate technical expertise in order to accurately and effectively display
the relevant information for the customer.

Using digital marketing tools overall enables customer acquisition and

increases the appeal of products and services as it assists the industrial
supplies SMEs in Singapore to showcase their products and services on the
internet. This is advantageous because the internet is available throughout the
whole year to assist customers to find the industrial supplies they need. Digital
marketing tools effectively match the industrial supplier effort with the
customer behaviour of looking for new suppliers on the internet.

Using digital marketing tools acts as an enabler for brand visibility from the
owners/manager’s perspective and increases brand credibility from the
customer’s perspective. The interviews conducted with owners/managers
show that their website will be found by search engines, giving them an online
presence. If the website has the right information and uses SEM tools, it will
appear near the top of the results from a search engine search, which helps
their brand visibility. Similarly, from the customer perspective, a website that
appears at the top of the search engine results normally means that the brand
is widely recognised and this adds to the brand’s credibility. According to
Routray (2020), digital marketing tools can enhance brand visibility and build
brand credibility. Having good brand visibility can affect the customer’s
perception of the brand’s credibility. In one interview with a customer, the
interviewee said that if they see a brand frequently, that has a positive impact
on their perception of the credibility of the brand.

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However, the challenges that the owners/managers face with using digital
marketing tools to enhance brand credibility is that they have difficulty finding
people with digital marketing expertise. Maintaining SEM tools to build brand
visibility can be very expensive and there’s no guarantee that investing
resources in increasing brand visibility would make good business sense.

Overall, the data collected shows that using digital marketing tools can
increase brand visibility and brand credibility, make it more likely that the SMEs
are noticed by customers and improve the customers’ perception of the brand.

Because digital marketing tools have no location limitations (Scheers, 2018),

they enable the industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore to achieve a global
presence, create an awareness of their brand globally (Makrides et al., 2020)
and connect them to the global market. This, in turn, increases brand visibility,
brand credibility and customer acquisition (Aini & Hapsari, 2019; Makrides et
al., 2020).

The owners/managers say that having a global digital marketing presence

helps them to expand the enquiry pool across different countries, and with
digital marketing tools, communication across national borders is made easier.
However, there are some limitations to this potential, the main one being a
lack of physical presence. The owners/managers believe that being physically
present near customers is important as it gives customers a sense of
confidence that they are going to order the correct products for the needs of
their manufacturing process. A physical face-to-face meeting allows the
customer to feel more at ease in dealing with the supplier. As interviewees 3
said: “In the internet world, you don’t know me, I don’t know you.” There was
also some feedback that some customers would not be willing to pay before
receiving their goods and similarly, suppliers would not be willing to ship the
products until they have been paid.

Customers, however, say that they would not be too concerned about the lack
of a physical presence as long as the brand is credible enough. They would
perform some checks on the background of the supplier before deciding to
procure anything from them. That said, the customer would actually prefer the
item to be locally available as trans-border transactions usually introduce

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greater complexity into the supply chain and service would usually not be as
fast. There may also be time differences or limitations on the communication
methods available to them.

Interestingly, from the customers’ perspective, the use of digital marketing

tools could disadvantage industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore. This is a
consequence of the uniqueness of Singapore, where business costs are high.
Digital marketing tools enable customers to benchmark pricing globally,
comparing them with prices quoted by Singapore-based SMEs. Furthermore,
if the industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore don’t have a strong presence in
the digital market, search engine results might put other, overseas suppliers
ahead of them in the results of a search. This creates extra competition for the
industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore.

Owners/managers say that using digital marketing tools has enabled them to
reach a global market using internal resources. However, digital marketing
tools have also enabled foreign competitors to compete in the small Singapore
market. Nevertheless, the owners/managers believe that digital marketing
tools are needed as an internal resource of the company in order to create
competitive advantage and enable them to compete effectively in both local
and global markets.

Using digital marketing tools also enhances customer interaction, customer

retention and customer loyalty. According to the responses from the owner-
managers, their pricing, service level and quality of their products are
important. But being an established supplier has also helped them to build a
solid relationship with their customers over the years, given that their supplies
and service level have been meeting the customers’ requirements. Digital
marketing tools help the SMEs to provide faster customer service and
solutions as well as increasing and enhancing communication with the
customer, this has help increase existing customer’s interaction and building
relationship and increasing customer retention.

Customers shared more on how they evaluate their suppliers based on their
pricing, service level and quality. They also value the relationship with the
supplier. With a positive past experience of the supplier’s service level and

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quality, they would normally go to their own preferred supplier rather than
taking a risk by exploring new suppliers. Customers did welcome the digital
marketing tools that make communication easier: sometimes a decision has
to be made quickly and having good digital marketing tools helps the customer
to find the information they need in order to make a decision. This indirectly
improves the service level of that supplier.

In accordance with the study by Hassan et al. (2019), customer retention and
loyalty can be built using digital marketing tools by enhancing communication
with the customer (Aini & Hapsari, 2019), gathering feedback and
understanding the needs of the customer (Routray, 2020; Varadarajan, 2020).
However, the fundamental priority of customer retention and loyalty is
relationships (Hlefana et al., 2020). Relationships can be built by ensuring
customer interaction to provide better services (Bahadur et al., 2018; Jokela &
Söderman, 2017), which can be enhanced using digital marketing tools
(Hassan et al., 2019; Nikunen et al., 2017) and understanding the customers’
needs (Cortez et al., 2020; Fjellström et al., 2020; Routray, 2020). This was
agreed by the customer that they would appreciate to find information that are
related to what they are looking for in the website quickly. In order achieve this,
the website content must also be optimised to make finding information easier.

Overall, using digital marketing tools does not seem to have a direct impact on
customer retention and loyalty. However, using digital marketing tools helps to
enable industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore to improve communication and
improve the customer service experience. This, in turn, enhances the RBNs
of the company. In RBT, RBNs are a very important resource of the company,
so this would help in building competitive advantage for the industrial supplies
SMEs in Singapore (Burt & Soda, 2021).

Lastly, we review the owners/managers’ perspective of using digital marketing

tools as enablers for sales revenue. Although most of the interviewees agree
that using digital marketing tools help them in increasing sales revenue, they
acknowledge that using digital marketing tools does not directly generate sales
revenue for them. It only acts as a “door” to the customer and from there, the
technical sales person in-charge would need to follow up with the customer,

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build a solution and develop the relationship with the customer in order to
complete the sales process and increase sales revenue. Using digital
marketing tools has helped them to open up initially to the customer, giving
them a “chance” to interact with the customer and, from there, build a
relationship and ultimately improve sales revenue.

Improving sales revenue could help the industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore
gain competitive advantage (Nuryakin, 2020). In the resource-based approach,
SMEs are generally lacking the resources to create competitive advantages
(Harrigan, et al., 2010; Ziółkowska, 2021). An increase in sales revenue can
help the company build capabilities to create competitive advantages.

From the customer perspective, customers are not looking at pricing alone.
The overall package of the company is much more important for the customer:
they want their suppliers to provide value for money industrial supplies. They
benchmark the market pricing for the particular industrial supplies they need
and follow by comparing them against factors such as pricing, quality products
and services, this rejected the argument that the market is moving towards
transactional selling (Ahearne, 2022). Using the internet, digital marketing
tools have enabled them to look for many different suppliers across the globe
quickly and benchmark pricing and the other factors to determine if the item is
value for money. This shows that, in recent years, digital marketing tools have
slowly replaced other methods that customers use to retain suppliers and look
for new suppliers. From the customer perspective, value for money is also
highly reliant on the supplier’s relationship with the customer and customer
satisfaction (Hlefana et al., 2020). Having a strong relationship with the
supplier allows the customer to view the supplier as providing a better service
level and can help to improve their perception of value for money.

In summary, the use of digital marketing tools has changed the expectations
of customers and how business is conducted. It has created both advantages
and disadvantages for the industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore. Using digital
marketing tools has helped to increase the resources of the companies and
helped to improve their relationship-based networks. It also creates a threat
for those industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore that do not use digital

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marketing tools: they lose out to the competitors that use digital marketing
tools.

5.4. Effectiveness of digital marketing tools in customer acquisition

and retention (RO3)

In light of how using digital marketing tools enables the industrial supplies
SMEs in Singapore to build different capabilities to obtain competitive
advantages, the findings of this study also reveal a weakness. That is the
absence of digital marketing tools in the current competitive business
environment. An understanding of the effectiveness of digital marketing tools
in terms of customer acquisition and retention would help owner-managers to
make better decisions on how they adopt digital marketing tools to build their
competitive advantages. The table 23 summarised both perspectives showing
the effectiveness of the digital marketing tools used.

Table 23

Summary of RO3: The effectiveness of digital marketing tools in customer acquisition and customer
retention

Effective Ineffective
Customer Acquisition (owners/managers perspective)
Enable higher brand visibility, Technical requirement needs to be
increase traffic flow and enquiry solved physically after looking at
rates. the process in the factory.

Being at the top of search engines Physical follow-up needed to gain

helps build branding and improve trust with the customers.
enquiry rates.

Website could help to convert Customers would prefer to

enquiries to make sales easier. approach suppliers they are
familiar with and have a
relationship with.
Looking for new suppliers (customers perspective)
Using the internet to search for new Would prefer to approach existing
suppliers whenever there is a suppliers who are familiar and with
requirement that existing suppliers whom they have a good
do not meet. relationship.

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 Having a website enables suppliers Decisions about using new
to be found easily and make known suppliers depend on price, quality
to everyone that they exist. and service.

Searching for the top suppliers in

the search engine search helps
filter the supplier quality.

Having a website that has

appropriate information enables
quick decisions about using the
suppliers.
Customer Retention (owners/managers perspective)
Improve customer interaction for Using non-digital (traditional)
better customer service. means; having the better pricing.
Improve customer loyalty through Using non-digital (traditional)
using better communication means; providing better quality
products and customer service.
Using digital marketing tools to
build relationship
Retaining existing suppliers (customers perspective)
Creates interaction to improve Decisions about retention of
supplier-customer interaction and existing suppliers depend on non-
supplier-customer loyalty. digital marketing factors such as
price, quality products and
services.
Having a website that has The supplier-customer relationship
appropriate information helps built offline is important.
answer any possible enquiry
quickly, improving supplier-
customer interaction / loyalty.
Ultimately improving customer
retention

Note. Table created by Author to summarise the findings for research objectives 3 from the
owners/managers’ and customers perspective.

According to the owners/manager perspectives on customer acquisition, using

digital marketing tools is effective in building brand visibility, creating
awareness in the market and building a bridge between them and the
customers. Using digital marketing tools also helps them respond to customer
needs: by displaying the basic information needed for customers to consider

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the product on their website, they make the sales process easier and enhance
the suppliers’ capacity to serve their customers. Similarly, from the customer
perspective, the internet has made searching for new suppliers easier.
Suppliers that use digital marketing tools appear in the results of internet
searches, which make them easier for customers to find. Having their
company appear in the top results of a search engine search gives the
customer confidence in the quality of their product and services.

The content of the website also makes a big difference in helping the customer
to make decisions. They often need more information to make a decision, and
according to Vieira et al. (2019), customers would normally look into the
product specification on a website before any decision is made.

However, there are challenges that would make using digital marketing tools
ineffective for customer acquisition. The owners/managers commented that
their products are highly technical and they need to be physically present in
the customer’s factory and review the customer’s technical processes if they
are to provide a solution. In addition, being physically present and meeting the
customer face-to-face builds trust and instils the customer with confidence.
Both the owner-managers and the customers agreed that the customer would
normally prefer to look to current suppliers with whom they have a relationship
for any new supplies. This was further reinforced by Kuo et al. (2020). The
customers, however, also said that the factors that would weigh most heavily
in a decision about a new supplier were pricing, quality and the service and
that they didn’t necessarily have a need for the supplier to meet them face-to-
face – which differed from the perception of owners/managers.

With regard to customer retention, both owners/managers and customers

perceive the use of digital marketing tools as helping to create connections,
improve service and build relationships, this is further endorsed by Arli et. al.
(2018) that technological advancement could help enhance relationship selling,
companies could leverage technology to enhance relationship-based network
to build a successful business network relationships. In addition, Fjellström et
al. (2020) also added that improved communication and service helps
customer retention (Hassan et al., 2019; Palmatier et al., 2006). However, the

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customers also pointed out that having a supplier with a comprehensive
website could help them to find the information they needed quickly, without
the need to call them or arrange a meeting with them. This helps reduce the
response time and improve the level of customer service holistically.

According to all the interviewee with the customers, the pricing, products and
services plays a very big factor in customer’s decision to retain the existing
suppliers, this is aligned with Geiger and Finch (2011) whom argued that some
buyers do not see any potential in maintaining relationships with suppliers
where their focus is mainly on prices of the item they purchase, this also
reinforce Ahearne (2022) findings that the market is moving towards
transactional selling. Although the pricing, products and services are not
directly affected by digital marketing tools, they could be affected indirectly.
According to Fjellström et al. (2020), improved communication can assist to
create a better customer service experience (Aini & Hapsari, 2019), and thus
provide customer satisfaction. This would help to build a positive supplier-
customer relationship (Palmatier et al., 2006) and in turn, building better
customer satisfaction and also expand the RBN of both the supplier and the
customers.

The owners/managers said that a disadvantage in using digital marketing tools

that can make the tools ineffective is that a relationship with the customer is
best built by having actual face-to-face communications. They believe that
relationships with established and potential customers are very important (Arli
et. al., 2018). Using an RBN gives them significant potential to retain
customers (Hlefana et al., 2020). However, according to Pandey et. al. (2020)
companies needs to understand their customer needs and preferences as
they differs before implementing the digital marketing tools and adopt the tools
appropriately to build a sustainable competitive advantages (Järvinen et al.,
2012).

In addition, both the owners/managers and the customers noted the

importance of suppliers fulfilling customer expectations on pricing, product
quality and service in order for customers to consider retaining the supplier-
customer relationship. Tu and Hsu (2013) identified pricing and service as

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important aspects of customer retention and that service could be enhanced
by using digital marketing tools (Cortez et al., 2020; Fjellström et al., 2020;
Routray, 2020). However, there is sign of weakness according to the
owners/managers that they would need an expert in digital marketing or
additional employees to manage the digital marketing tools correctly as person
who manages the digital marketing tools would need to “know what they are
doing”. This shows that even with the availability of digital marketing tools,
studies shows that SMEs does not keep up with the pace of digital
development and therefore could not fully utilize digital marketing tools to the
fullest potential (Taiminen & Karjaluoto, 2015).

This study shows that using digital marketing tools could effectively assist
industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore as digital marketing tools enable various
internal and external resources of the company and help to build a bridge
between supplier and customer, to create awareness and improve brand
visibility. Herhausen et al. (2020) highlighted although digital marketing could
to building a competitive advantages, there are many gaps between the
practice and the ideal situation. That said, some of the factors that affect
customer acquisition and retention are unable to be improved by using digital
marketing tools. Nevertheless, customer service could be improved and the
quality of the brand could be made known with digital marketing tools.

In summary, using digital marketing tools could effectively assist the industrial
supplies SMEs in Singapore. Digital marketing tools enhance various internal
and external resources and can improve customer acquisition, brand visibility,
going global, customer satisfaction and customer retention. Using digital
marketing tools also helps to create a “bridge” for building an RBN and
connecting the supplier and the customer.

These days, when customers has high reliance on finding suppliers by using
digital means, digital marketing tools offer a solution for the customers. They
allow suppliers to be found easily by customers. This is especially important
when the market is small and competitive, with both local and global
competition. The industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore would benefit from
using effective digital marketing.

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5.5. Chapter summary

The chapter has presented and discussed what the prominent digital
marketing tools are and how they can affect the industrial supplies SMEs in
Singapore. Website marketing and search engine marketing are the prominent
digital marketing tools used. They have helped to create strategic benefits for
suppliers by enhancing brand visibility to create awareness on the internet and
to link with customers, thus improving customer acquisition. However, a
website should contain relevant information so that customers can understand
the products and services the supplier offers.

The overview framework helps the discussion by linking the literature on RBT
and RBN structures using digital marketing to build the internal and external
resources of the company. The discussion also covers the effectiveness of
using digital marketing tools in customer acquisition and retention and how
effective digital marketing tools are for the industrial supplies SMEs in
Singapore. Website marketing and search engines marketing have been used
effectively to increase brand visibility. Increased brand visibility leads to an
increase in customer enquiries and customer acquisition and an improvement
in customer service, which indirectly helps to build a better relationship with
the customer. However, using digital marketing tools for customer acquisition
and customer retention has its limitations: industrial suppliers need to maintain
a certain product quality and their products need to match with the customer’s
technical requirements. Pricing of the industrial supplies also plays a big factor
in both customer acquisition and retention. This chapter has also highlighted
the weaknesses and potential threats of using digital marketing tools in the
company to develop competitive advantages.

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CHAPTER SIX: CONCLUSION AND
RECOMMENDATIONS

6. Introduction

This final chapter will reflect on the achievement of the research aims, followed
by a review of the contribution to the knowledge in this field and the limitations
of the study. Suggestions for future research are also discussed. The chapter
concludes with final thoughts about the subject studied.

6.1. Achievement of Research Aim

This research was undertaken on the industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore

and their customers between May 2020 and March 2021. It aimed were to
investigate the prominent digital marketing tools used (RO1), explore their role
as a strategic tool for industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore to gain competitive
advantages using digital marketing (RO2) and understand the effectiveness of
digital marketing tools in customer acquisition and retention.

In addressing RO1, the finding of the interviews conducted is that the

prominent digital marketing tools that the industrial supplies SMEs in
Singapore use are websites and SEM tools for customer acquisition. Although
RBNs influence customers, digital marketing has influenced customer to check
the website of their existing suppliers before going to internet search engines
to search for new suppliers. Therefore, websites were deemed to be the
prominent digital marketing tool, used alongside RBNs, for customer retention.
Pricing and quality are among other important factors in customer retention,
and they are not directly impacted by the use of digital marketing tools.
However, having good brand visibility can help to improve a potential
customer’s perception of quality, thus improving the prospect of customer
acquisition.

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In addressing RO2, the study found that using digital marketing tools enhances
a company’s customer acquisition capability, brand visibility, access to global
markets and level of service, leading to greater customer satisfaction. These
internal resources also generate better sales revenue. All of these outcomes
can contribute to building sustainable competitive advantages.

In the context of digitalisation taking place in recent years (Ng, 2021; Tan,
2020), customers of the industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore that do not
restrict themselves to local Singapore suppliers have become heavily reliant
on using digital means to search for better suppliers. These methods include
using search engines and using their own relationship-based networks to look
for new suppliers that offer better pricing and product quality. On the other
hand, the industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore that have digital marketing
capabilities have a competitive advantage over those who don’t as using digital
marketing tools can build the company’s external resources. These may
include having greater customer appeal, building brand credibility through
having high brand visibility and having an international.

Using digital marketing tools also helps to provide better communication

between suppliers and their customers. This results in enhanced customer
satisfaction, which builds customer loyalty and, thus, improves customer
retention. These outcomes affect the extent to which a customer perceives the
supplier’s products and services to represent good value for money and this,
in turn, helps the industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore by creating a
competitive advantage.

However, due to the limited resources of the industrial supplies SMEs in

Singapore, the owners/managers would not see the benefits of using digital
marketing as they might need to invest additional resources to build digital
marketing capability which would deter them from using digital marketing tools
to generate competitive advantages.

Lastly, in addressing RO3, the investigation of the effectiveness of using digital

marketing tools for improving customer acquisition and customer retention
shows that, although for customer acquisition, the use of digital marketing tools
is effective in creating awareness and helping to increase brand visibility,

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customers still prefer to deal with existing suppliers and look at the commercial
issues, such as pricing and quality. A potential supplier often relies on having
a physical follow-up meeting to gain a potential customer’s trust and
confidence and to build an RBN with them. However, from the customer’s
perspective, they would almost always look for new suppliers using digital
means, which shows the importance of customer acquisition by using digital
marketing tools and having a digital presence, according to Fraccastoro et al.
(2021) digital marketing tools can help to establish new relationships between
individuals and businesses.

Using digital marketing tools for customer retention is less effective as

customers prefer to look to existing suppliers to offer better pricing, better
quality and better service to them and build a positive relationship with them
(Arli et. al., 2018). Using digital marketing tools can only play a small role, such
as enhancing communication between the customer and the supplier, which
helps to improve customer service and build a relationship with the customer
which was further reinforced by Ancillai et al. (2019) that most research shows
that digital marketing tools affect customer relationships. However, digital
marketing tools are also a double-edged sword: they empower the customer
to readily perform searches using search engines to benchmark the products
and services offered by their existing suppliers, this was further argued by
Ahearne (2022) that with the help of digital marketing tools, potentially the
market could move towards transactional selling as information is more easily
available. Therefore, the industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore need to have
a plan for the use of digital marketing to help them to generate competitive
advantages.

In summary, the research aims and objectives of this study were achieved.
The research found that digital marketing tools can be used as a bridge to
create RBNs for the industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore. Digital marketing
tools are an internal resource of the company, enabling the development of
other company resources. Those resources help to enhance RBNs and
effectively help the industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore to achieve
competitive advantages. Not having digital marketing capabilities would place
them at a disadvantage compared with their competitors both locally and

136
globally. However, there is a need to track the performance of the digital
marketing tools and would likely incur additional costs for the
owners/managers of the industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore

6.2. Contribution to Knowledge

Currently, there is a lot of literature on digital marketing (refer to Appendix 1.)

that has unveiled the benefits of using digital marketing tools to acquire new
customers and enhance current customer relationships through better
communication and understanding, ultimately helping SMEs to achieve
competitive advantages (James, 2020; Krings et al., 2021). However, the
industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore operate in a market that involves their
customers’ manufacturing processes, which have complex technical
requirements, non-digital factors such as pricing and quality of the products,
and the use of RBNs. This shows that more work has to be done due to the
complex needs of B2B businesses (Pandey et al., 2020).

This thesis contributes to the knowledge in this field by combining resource-

based and relationship-based networks as the unpinning theories to
investigate the perspectives of the owners/managers and customers of the
industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore on digital marketing. It also explains the
strengths, weaknesses and potential threats of using digital marketing tools in
the Singapore industrial supplies environment.

The findings of this research with regards to RO1 are that the prominent digital
marketing tools are websites and search engine marketing. Used concurrently,
they can help to create a “bridge” to connect suppliers and customers, as
customers rely heavily on using digital marketing tools to search for new
suppliers. In addition, digital marketing tools also enhance communication and
provide information to any customer at any time and in any location. This adds
to the current digital marketing literature (Appendix 1) by uncovering the most
prominent digital marketing tools for the industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore.
The findings also uncovered other prominent digital marketing tools such as
digital WOM which was mentioned in various literature but were not used in
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the environment here. This would add value to the current literature as it
highlighted the potential gap between the literature available and the current
situation in the industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore.

With regards to RO2, using digital marketing tools has helped to build brand
visibility for the industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore, which builds the internal
resource of the company. This also affects the external resources of the
company creating competitive advantages according to Järvinen et al. (2012)
the SMEs would need to understand the nature of the tools before
implementing the digital marketing tools and adopt the tools appropriately to
build sustainable competitive advantages. The findings also illustrate the
challenges that digital marketing faces in Singapore, where RBNs play an
important role to maintain and expand their customer base. There is also a
need to maintain a balance between RBNs strategy with other strategies
(Geiger & Finch, 2011).

The findings also contribute to the building of the conceptual framework, which
contributes to resource-based and relationship-based network theory. The
conceptual framework contributes to the allocation of resources to the various
focus of the organisation to meet customer expectations to create efficiency
towards joint success, building sustainable competitive advantages. Such
resource allocation could help SMEs to optimise their resource, as the use of
digital marketing tools could enhance sales. Having a website could also act
as another salesperson who was not bound by working hours and geographic
limitations could enhance brand visibility for customer acquisition and also
provide a quick solution for the current customer that might have problems
with the products which helps customer retention. This would effectively help
SMEs to use their limited resources more efficiently.

With regards to RO3, the effectiveness of digital marketing tools was explored.
The results indicate that even though in Singapore RBNs are used widely,
there are indications that using digital marketing tools is making an impact on
how business is done, the study reveals that although the industrial supplies
SMEs in Singapore have implemented digital marketing tools into their
strategies, they would also need to understand and keep up with the

138
development and the use of digital marketing tool such as hiring additional
talent or to have an objective towards using the digital marketing tools which
were further endorsed by Taiminen and Karjaluoto (2015) findings that SMEs
that could not keep up with the digital marketing development could not fully
utilise the digital marketing tools.

Lastly, the resources of the industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore might not
allow the owners/managers to fully implement digital marketing as they might
need to invest additional resources to build digital marketing capability, the
benefits of digital marketing tools must give a promising result. For the
owners/managers to feel “worth the money” from their investment into building
digital marketing capabilities which most of the SMEs would be benchmarking
against their sales revenue. This would determine if the digital marketing tools
are valued for money for them, the SMEs owners/managers had also
responded positively to digital marketing tools citing that even though they did
not explicitly track the performance of the digital market tools against the sales
revenue that they created, generally they knew that digital marketing tools
have helped them.

Overall, the findings of this thesis provide the reader with a better
understanding of the use of digital marketing tools by industrial supplies SMEs
in Singapore where digital marketing could assist in better resource allocation
and building competitive advantages. The methodology showcased data
triangulation using the dyadic approach, which enhanced the trustworthiness
of the research and contributed to methodological knowledge.

6.3. Contribution to Practice

This research offers two main contributions to practitioners in the industrial

supplies SMEs in Singapore as well as similar business-to-business (B2B)
trade in other industries. First, the research provides insight into the prominent
digital marketing tools used in the industry and how effective they are. This
helps to guide practitioners to deploy only those tools that are effective,
conserving the limited resources of the SMEs. With regards to RO1, the digital

139
marketing tools that owners/managers should adopt are website marketing
and SEM marketing for customer acquisition. Website marketing could also
help in customer retention, as the findings suggest that having a website with
relevant information available to customers could help improve customer
service levels and hence assist in customer retention. Figure 6 shows an
action framework that acts as a guideline for practitioners who does not have
an idea of how to adopt digital marketing capability.

Figure 6

Digital marketing action framework.

Note. Outline of suggestion of implementation of digital marketing, by Author.

Figure 6 builds on the findings of this research. The cycle starts from #1,
understanding the customers’ needs, the needs of the customer could be
gathered by having feedback from existing customers or external research
done by research companies, having to understand the needs of the customer,
SMEs owners/managers would be able to understand what kind of content
they would need. In #2, create the website with content that could fulfil the
needs of the customers, it should also include information about and technical
specifications of the supplier’s products, this would help to address the gaps
between the customer’s perspective and the information offered in the website.

140
After the website is set up, #3 search engine marketing activities need to be
undertaken to ensure that the website is ranked in the top few of a search
engine search, this is to create brand awareness and help to build brand
credibility from the customer perspective. Once both activities are completed,
#4 active monitoring of the website is needed to ensure that #5 sales enquiries
from potential customers are responded to quickly so that #6 customers can
be acquired and #7 sales revenue can be generated, by having an increase in
sales revenue, a portion of the sales revenue generated by referring to this
action framework could be used to create better digital marketing activities to
further expand digital capabilities such as creating new website content,
maintaining the website content ensures that customers can access the latest
information, thus building sustainable competitive advantages. As Herhausen
et al. (2020) highlighted that even though digital marketing could help RBN to
build a competitive advantage, there are many gaps between the practice and
the ideal situation. Therefore, tracking the performance of digital marketing
tools is important to understand how digital marketing tools could help to bring
in additional sales revenue.

Secondly, due to the challenging nature of mapping actual business activities

to strategic benefit using digital marketing, with regards to RO2, the research
also showcases how using DM tools benefits the industrial supplies SMEs in
Singapore strategically and leverages its internal and external resources to
help the company achieve sustainable competitive advantages. Using digital
marketing tools as stated in Figure 6 helps to enhance brand visibility both
locally and globally, which improves customer acquisition and ultimately
creates sustainable competitive advantages.

Similarly, using digital marketing tools could also assist companies because it
improves brand credibility, international appeal and brand visibility. However,
digital marketing is a double-edged sword: customers are using DM tools to
explore products and services that represent the best value for money for them,
although DM tools could help the customers to search for other suppliers that
have more value for money proposition, they would also look at the non-digital
marketing aspect such as customer services, pricing and product quality.

141
Therefore, DM tools are essential to creating a sustainable competitive
advantage.

However, this research found that some DM tools are less effective for
industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore. These include business directories and
social media, as customers would normally use search engines to search for
new suppliers. Existing customers do not normally read email marketing
materials sent by suppliers. Instead, they prefer to go to the supplier’s website
directly to check for any products and services they need. In addition, this
research also found that although DM tools could assist to create sustainable
competitive advantages, the DM tools could not replace the traditional way of
doing business in the industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore as
owners/managers and customers are still heavily reliant on building
relationship network, pricing and quality of the products that are still the main
consideration towards the decision making of the customers.

The SMEs that already have digital marketing capabilities could also explore
enhancing their website content and realigning their digital marketing
objectives as finding suggested that having an objective as to what digital
marketing tools could fill in the resource gap would allow better resource
allocation. In light of the perspective of the customers, the owners/managers
should focus on the content and gather more feedback from the customers.
This would help the SMEs to build better interaction and improve customer
relationships which in the long run help to achieve better customer retention
and build more RBNs.

In summary, SME practitioners in the field of industrial supplies in Singapore

could use this digital marketing and relationship-based network knowledge to
continuously innovate to generate a competitive advantage (Nonaka &
Takechi, 1995). However, this research is not limited to this market niche only:
it could also be used by other business-to-business industries of similar nature
to great benefit.

142
6.4. Limitations of the Study

The methodology’s limitations have already been addressed in this thesis. As

this thesis has adopted a post-positivism and constructivism philosophical
approach due to time and manpower constraints. Due to the size of the
industry, quantitative surveys were not able to be used to research prominent
digital marketing tools. However, using a semi-structured interview approach
meant that other in-depth data could be gathered as well. In Singapore, most
SMEs were not willing to be interviewed, especially with the interview being
recorded, as they would not want to be quoted for fear of making an
inappropriate comment. This further limits the study.

As this research is limited to a very specific focus on the industrial supplies

SMEs in Singapore, due to the nature of the industry where specific technical
expertise is needed in the industry, generalizability might not be possible
towards the other industry which does not have this trait.

While these limitations meant that it was not possible to produce a large
amount of data for RO1 – to identify the prominent digital marketing tools used
– the semi-structured interview that was used was sufficient to make
identification possible. This approach also provided a focus on the benefits
and effectiveness of using digital marketing tools. It was felt that the qualitative
approach using a semi-structured interview was appropriate to investigate
RO1.

In addition, due to the ongoing global pandemic, there were various restrictions
on conducting face-to-face interviews. This was considered a limitation of the
research as interview participants might feel uncomfortable speaking via
telecommunication and video conferencing and are less likely to fully express
their views with ease.

Nevertheless, given the findings, the research undertaken, augmented by

semi-structured interviews with both owners/managers and customers was
sufficient to achieve the research aims and objectives of the project.

143
6.5. Suggestions for Future Research

This research was conducted using the underlying theory of resource-based

and relationship-based network theory. There are several other theories such
as marketing theory and strategic theory could be used to examine the impact
of using digital marketing tools. Further research could be based on marketing
theory or strategic theory to examine the benefits and effectiveness of
industrial supplies SMEs in Singapore using digital marketing tools.

Although this research is targeted specifically at industrial supplies and is not

able to generalize to sectors of totally different traits. However, further
research could extend towards exploring the industrial supplies SMEs in the
South East Asian region to understand a larger context, given that the culture
of Singapore is different from that of neighbouring countries such as Malaysia
and Indonesia. The research can also be generalized into a similar industry
such as electronic manufacturing or chemical manufacturing as those industry
requires technical expertise and post similar traits.

In this study, purposive sampling was chosen, which may have led to a lack of
representativeness. A mixed methodology could be applied to identify the
prominent digital marketing tools using a random sampling approach. A larger
database would provide more reliable findings, this would reinforce the
prominent digital marketing tools that the industrial supplies SMEs are using.
This could be followed by semi-structured interviews to explore in depth the
strategic benefits and the effectiveness of using digital marketing tools. The
digital marketing action framework (Figure 7) could also be used to explore in-
depth the effectiveness of the framework in assisting practitioners to set up
their digital marketing capabilities.

Other proposals for future research could include understanding the

competitive advantages that using digital marketing tools has enabled, and
how the competitive advantages affect the company’s performance and
company growth. According to Nonaka & Takechi (1995), knowledge created
can be used to create continuous innovation to generate competitive

144
advantage. This has significance for the future of this research and the amount
of new knowledge that could be created through further research.

6.6. Final Thoughts

SMEs have been recognised as an important sector in the economy by many

countries around the world. Singapore is no exception. The rising adaptation
of using digital marketing tools has been a double-edged sword: it could create
both advantages and disadvantages for companies. It is only through
understanding the benefits and challenges of the present that companies can
adopt a strategy to continuously create competitive advantages to stay
competitive in the current competitive market environment where digitalisation
has created disruption and changed the way business is traditionally
conducted.

145
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Appendix 1 – Literature Grid

Digital Marketing tools

Search Website Digital
Year Author Title Engine Directory Word of
Website Email
Marketing / Social Mouth /
(SEM) tools Media Blog Tools
Digital Display - Many agents
are adding digital tools to their
2011 Chordas marketing mix to boost leads X X X
and create greater brand
awareness.
The Importance of Digital
Marketing. An exploratory
Khan & study of the perceptions and
2013 X X X X
Siddiqui effectiveness of digital
marketing amongst marketing
professionals in Pakistan
The Effect of Digital Marketing
Cizmeci & Communication Tools in the
2015 X X
Ercan Creation of Brand Awareness
by Housing Companies
Micro-Enterprises’ Digital
N kunen
2017 Marketing Tools for Building X X X X X
et al.
Customer Relationships

Negoit Digital Marketing Tools Used

2018 X X X X
et al. by Companies

Traditional versus Online

Marketing for B2B
2018 Veronica et al. X X X X X
Organizations: Where the Line
Blurs

Internet Web Marketing

2018 Scheers Challenges of South African X X X X X
SMEs

Interests Influence of Digital

2019 Aini et al. Marketing Product Sales in X X X X X
Exports by SMEs in Bandung

Digital Marketing: Its Impact on

2020 Kumar X X X X X
B2B in India – A Study

Industrial Marketing
2021 Krings et al. Management: Digital Media X X X
Optimization for B2B Marketing

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Appendix 2 – Qualifying email for SMEs Owners/Managers

Interview qualifying email (to be sent out for appointment making)

Dear Sir/Madam,
Good day to you, I am Kwee Yong CHIN, doctoral student currently doing a
postgraduate study / research at Edinburgh Napier University.
If you meet the following 3 criteria:
• Company Incorporated in Singapore with:
o At least 30% local shareholding
o Group annual sales turnover of less than $100 million
o Employment size of not more than 200 workers

• Currently in the wholesales industrial trading supplying the following

products:
o (MRO products) Maintenance, Repair and Operations products used for:
 Indirect material for manufacturing or repair operations such as:
 Abrasives – Grinding and sanding processes
(Grinding Stones, Honing Stones, Sanding Belts, Blasting
Media, Lapping compound)
 Cutting tools – turning, milling, drilling, boring, facing
processes
(Inserts, Drills, Reamers, End Mills, Broach, Boring bar, taps)

• Currently using digital marketing tools for their customer acquisition and/or
retention.
The use of digital marketing tools is referred as using:
 Blog
 Facebook
 E-commerce
 E-mail
 Search engine marketing (Online advertisement)
 Website
 content marketing for SEO
 Pay-per-click(PPC)
Kindly reply to this email, so that I would be able to potentially invite you for an
interview.

Kindly also note that interview will only be conducted upon acknowledgement of
Interview Consent Form, attached in this email, if you feel uncomfortable during
any part of the process including replying this email, kindly ignore this email.
Your Sincerely,
Kwee Yong, CHIN
Postgraduate Student
Student ID: 40411999
Tel:

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Appendix 3 –Qualifying email for Customers buying from Singapore SMEs

Interview qualifying email (to be sent out for appointment making)

Dear Sir/Madam,
Good day to you, I am Kwee Yong CHIN, doctoral student currently doing a
postgraduate study / research at Edinburgh Napier University.
If you meet the following 3 criteria:

• Currently in buying industrial supplies of the following products:

o (MRO products) Maintenance, Repair and Operations products used for:
 Indirect material for manufacturing or repair operations such as:
 Abrasives – Grinding and sanding processes
(Grinding Stones, Honing Stones, Sanding Belts, Blasting
Media, Lapping compound)
 Cutting tools – turning, milling, drilling, boring, facing
processes
(Inserts, Drills, Reamers, End Mills, Broach, Boring bar, taps)

• Currently buying it from any SMEs in Singapore with the following criteria:
o Company Incorporated in Singapore with:
o At least 30% local shareholding
o Group annual sales turnover of less than $100 million
o Employment size of not more than 200 workers

• Currently using digital marketing tools for sourcing currently or new suppliers.
The use of digital marketing tools is referred as using:
 Blog
 Facebook
 E-commerce
 E-mail
 Search engine marketing (Online advertisement)
 Website
 content marketing for SEO
 Pay-per-click(PPC)
Kindly reply to this email, so that I would be able to potentially invite you for an
interview.

Kindly also note that interview will only be conducted upon acknowledgement of
Interview Consent Form, attached in this email, if you feel uncomfortable during any
part of the process including replying this email, kindly ignore this email.
Your Sincerely,
Kwee Yong, CHIN
Postgraduate Student
Student ID: 40411999
Tel:

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Appendix 4 – interview consent form

Interview Consent Form

Research title:
Exploration into how digital marketing tools affects customer retention
and acquisition for SME(s) in the wholesale of industrial product (B2B)
in Singapore

Edinburgh Napier University requires that all persons who participate in research
studies give their written consent to do so. Please read the following and sign it if you
agree with what it says.
1. I freely and voluntarily consent to be a participant in the research project on the
topic of digital marketing to be conducted by Kwee Yong CHIN, Student id: 40411999,
who is a postgraduate student at Edinburgh Napier University.
2. The broad goal of this research study is to understand the role of digital marketing
can be as a strategic tool for SMEs in the wholesales industrial products (B2B) SME
in Singapore to acquire and retain customers. Specifically, I have been asked to be
interviewed to share my experience with regards to the topic mentioned above, which
should take no longer than 1 hour and 30 minutes to complete.
3. I have been told that my responses will be anonymised. My name will not be linked
with the research materials, and I will not be identified or identifiable in any report
subsequently produced by the researcher.
4. I also understand that if at any time during the interview I feel unable or unwilling
to continue, I am free to leave. That is, my participation in this study is completely
voluntary, and I may withdraw from it without negative consequences. However, after
data has been anonymised or after publication of results it will not be possible for my
data to be removed as it would be untraceable at this point.
5. In addition, should I not wish to answer any particular question or questions, I am
free to decline.
6. I have been given the opportunity to ask questions regarding the interview and my
questions have been answered to my satisfaction.
7. I have read and understand the above and consent to participate in this study. My
signature is not a waiver of any legal rights. Furthermore, I understand that I will be
able to keep a copy of the informed consent form for my records.

Participant’s Signature/ Date

I have explained and defined in detail the research procedure in which the respondent
has consented to participate. Furthermore, I will retain one copy of the informed
consent form for my records.

Researcher’s Signature/ Date

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Appendix 5 – interview questionnaire

Semi-structure Face-to-face /video / phone interview structure (SME Owners/Managers)

Section 1: Interviewee & DM Tools Verification (Research Objective 1)

a) Could you tell me about your job roles and responsibilities in your company? What
are some of the task you are required to do?

b) Could you tell me what are the some digital marketing tool(s) for example,
promoting or maintaining website, social media, sending of email, e-commerce,
etc… that you are using in your daily job and how are you using them?

Section 2: DM Tools Verification (Research Objective 2 & 3)

Customer Acquisition
a) How do you think *DM Tools Stated* assist you in terms of getting more customers?
i) How effective do you think *DM Tools Stated* has helped you achieve
customer acquisition?
ii) How has the *DM Tools Stated* affect the business competitive edge in
terms of Customer Acquisition?
Brand Visibility
b) How do you think *DM Tools Stated* assist you in terms of getting you brand more
visible in the market?
i) How effective do you think *DM Tools Stated* has helped you achieve
brand visibility?
ii) How has the *DM Tools Stated* affect the business competitive edge in
terms of Brand Visibility?
Going Global
c) How do you think *DM Tools Stated* assist you in terms of getting you brand into
the global/overseas market?
i) How effective do you think *DM Tools Stated* has helped you to go
global/overseas?
ii) How has the *DM Tools Stated* affect the business competitive edge in
terms of Going Global?
Customer Satisfaction
d) How do you think *DM Tools Stated* help you towards customer satisfaction?
i) How effective do you think *DM Tools Stated* has helped you achieve
customer satisfaction?
ii) How has the *DM Tools Stated* affect the business competitive edge in
terms of Customer Satisfaction?
Sales Revenue
e) How do you think *DM Tools Stated* assist you in increasing your sales revenue?
i) How effective do you think *DM Tools Stated* has helped you increase
your sales revenue?

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 ii) How has the *DM Tools Stated* affect the business competitive edge in
terms of Sales Revenue?
Cost Efficiency
f) How do you think using *DM Tools Stated* is cost efficient for you?
i) How cost efficient do you think *DM Tools Stated* is?
ii) How has the *DM Tools Stated* affect the business competitive edge in
terms of Cost Efficiency?

Section 3: DM Tools effectiveness (Research Objective 3)

a) Could you give an example of how the customer response to your digital
marketing efforts?

Are there other issue with the use of digital marketing tools you would like to share?
Thank you for your valuable time.

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Semi-structure Face-to-face /video / phone interview structure (Customers)

Section 1: Interviewee & DM Tools Verification (Research Objective 1)

a) Could you tell me about your job roles and responsibilities in your company? What
are some of the task you are required to do?

b) Could you tell me what are the some of the way you find new suppliers using
digital means? For example, using google, social media, online directory, etc…
that you are using in your daily job and how are you using them?

Section 2: DM Tools Verification (Research Objective 2 & 3)

Customer Acquisition / Product & Services Appeal

a) How appealing would you find the supplier would be if you were to find them using
the *DM Tools Stated*?
i) How effective do you think *DM Tools Stated* has made the supplier
appealing to you?
ii) How has the suppliers’ business competitive edge generated by *DM
Tools Stated* affects your choice of supplier in terms of appeal against
other suppliers?
Brand Visibility /Brand Credibility
b) How do you think *DM Tools Stated* brand visibility can affects your opinion of
their brand credibility?
i) How effective do you think *DM Tools Stated* has helped you identify their
brand credibility?
ii) How has the suppliers’ business competitive edge generated by *DM
Tools Stated* affects your choice of supplier in terms of Brand Credibility
against other suppliers?
Going Global / International Appeal
c) How do you think about searching for supplier globally using *DM Tools Stated*?
i) How effective do you think *DM Tools Stated* make the international
sourcing appealing?
ii) How has the suppliers’ business competitive edge generated by *DM
Tools Stated* affects your choice of supplier in terms of international
sourcing appeal against other suppliers?
Customer Satisfaction / Customer Loyalty / Retention
d) How do you think *DM Tools Stated* helps in retaining you?
i) How effective do you think *DM Tools Stated* has affect your loyalty and
retention?
ii) How has the suppliers’ business competitive edge generated by *DM
Tools Stated* affects loyalty and retention against other suppliers?
Value for Money
e) How do you think the products and services offered by supplier that were found
using *DM Tools Stated* were value for money?

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 i) How effective is using *DM Tools Stated* to find products and services
that were value for money?
ii) How has the suppliers’ business competitive edge generated by *DM
Tools Stated* affects the value of product / services they offered against
other suppliers?
Section 3: DM Tools effectiveness (Research Objective 3)

a) Overall, how do you think about supplier who are using *DM Tools Stated* vs
supplier who doesn’t appeal to you?

Are there other issue with the use of digital marketing tools you would like to share?
Thank you for your valuable time.

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 Appendix 6 – interviewee details

Section 1: Interviewee group: Singapore SMEs Owners / Managers

# Industry Size Gender / Competitiveness Location Length
* Nationality of
Interview
1 Abrasives 7-10 Male / Good digital presences; Light 38mins
Singaporean easy to find in multiple Industrial
search engines & online area
directories. Local Sole (Central
Distributor of Germany Singapore)
products well-known in
Aerospace & Oil and gas
industry
2 Hardware 8-12 Male / Decent digital presences; Light 50mins
& Singaporean found in top search Industrial
Abrasives engines. Local distributor area
of many brands. (Central
Established in wide Singapore)
range of industry in
Singapore
3 Cutting 15- Male / Good digital presences; Light 62mins
Tools & 25 Singaporean found in top search Industrial
Abrasives engines & online area (East
directories. Local Singapore)
distributor of many
brands. Established in
wide range of industry
across the world
especially Southeast
Asia
4 Abrasives 4-9 Male / Decent digital presences; Light 48mins
Singaporean found in top search Industrial
engines. Distributor of area (East
their own brand. Singapore)
Established in wide
range of industry across
Singapore & Philippines
5 Safety & 15- Male / Good digital presences; Heavy 55mins
Cutting 20 Singaporean found in top search Industrial
tools engines & online area (West
directories. High Singapore)
presences in Southeast
Asia.
6 Cutting 10- Male / Decent digital presences; Light 46mins
Tools 12 Singaporean found in top search Industrial
engines. Distributor of area (West
their many brands. Well Singapore)
Known in wide range of
industry across
Singapore & Malaysia
*Size refers to employment size including the owners of the SME.

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Section 2: Interviewee group: Customers of the industrial supplies SMEs in
Singapore & Malaysia

# Industry Country Gender / Years of Length of

(Location) Nationality procurement interview
experience
7 Aerospace Singapore Male / 5 years 43mins
Repair & (North: Singaporean
Overhaul Aerospace
Park)
8 Manufacturing Malaysia (Johor Male / 15 years 38mins
Bahru) Malaysian
9 Oil & Gas Singapore Male / 8 years 42mins
Repair & (West: Heavy Singaporean
Overhaul industrial area)
10 Contract Singapore Female / 6 years 40mins
Manufacturing (North: Heavy Malaysian
industrial area)

Section 3: Relationship between Supplier & customers

* Customer was recommended by the SMEs owners/ managers interviewee.

# SMEs owners/ Customer Relationship

manager

R1 Interviewee #1 Interviewee #7 Supplier-customer relationship for

around 3years.
R2 Interviewee #1 Interviewee #9 Supplier-customer relationship for
around 5years.
R3 Interviewee #6 Interviewee #8 Supplier-customer relationship for
around 10years.
R4 Interviewee #5 Interviewee #10 Supplier-customer relationship for
around 8years.

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Appendix 7 – Thematic analysis process

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Customers that saw their showcase can also fill in their enquiry in the contact
form on the website. Interviewee 1 had provided an overview of his perspective
on using a website and search engine marketing tools by stating:

Most of the time the customers, when they come to us, the social media,
the website actually just leads us to the customer’s enquiry. There are
times they are not looking for the correct things or things like that. But
when we link up with them, then we ask them what they really want, so
from there on we can promote our product or services more efficiently.
But most importantly, the social media, the website is that they are able
to link us to the customers.

This highlighted that as industrial supplies are technical products, potential

customers might not find the most suitable products on the websites or from
digital marketing tools. They are marketing tools that can create awareness
and provide a link to potential customers.

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